


Epaulia

by drinkbloodlikewine, whiskeyandspite



Series: Aiónios [3]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Ancient Greece AU, Fluff, M/M, Oral Sex, Paganism, Pederasty, Teasing, animal husbandry, historical events, intercrural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-25
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-03-08 20:48:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 10
Words: 51,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3222968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drinkbloodlikewine/pseuds/drinkbloodlikewine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandspite/pseuds/whiskeyandspite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Will raises an eyebrow at the gathered men and offers a smile, head ducked enough to be demure, eyes up through his fringe, long enough now to cover his eyes, not yet long enough to follow the rest of his hair into a tail-braid that rests between his shoulders at the top of his spine.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>He waits a moment more before going to greet his erastes properly.</i>
</p><p>The third year that Hannibal and Will share together. Follows on directly after <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/2672576">Engysis</a>, and it helps a lot if you have read that one first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WendigoDreaming](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WendigoDreaming/gifts).



> Still working from [dweeby](http://dweeby.tumblr.com/)'s amazing prompt that started Ero̱totropía and led to this certainly-not-a-one-shot series. Thank you, bb, it has been - and continues to be - a blast.
> 
> If you have a [commission](http://wwhiskeyandbloodd.tumblr.com/donate) for us, [send it our way](http://wwhiskeyandbloodd.tumblr.com/ask)! Commissions are still open and going strong!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Much better behaved than last time we saw him,” observes one of the men, and Hannibal snorts._
> 
> _“I should hope so,” he counters. “The last time you saw him was what, two years back now? If I can train you sorry lot into soldiers, I can certainly train a boy into his manhood.”_
> 
> _“And how is your manhood coming along?” One of the men asks Will, wry amusement in his tone._
> 
> Will meets Hannibal's friends again, and proves his worth among them.

Word spreads quickly.

Though few are aware how closely Greece stood to face Persia, weapons ready, news of the revolt in the Empire’s Egyptian colony has been cried for days in the agorae, always met with relief and applause. The soldiers - who daily live ordinary lives as Athenian citizens - especially heave a heady sigh to know that they will not again be called up to fight. And for those men who Hannibal calls his brothers, it is a time to celebrate.

Their kylikes have been emptied twice already by the time Will returns to the house, wandering past the study where they sit, more than one having spilled the sweet wine down the front of his chiton. The wine is more sweet for being the gift of a gracious host, and sweeter still than that for the reason that they drink. The general sits, legs comfortably spread where he slouches into his high-backed chair, kylix balanced on his leg with a careful hand and an enormous wheezing dog beneath the other.

“They must be eating you into poverty,” wonders one of the men, watching as Hannibal scratches Yelp behind his ears.

“Most of them catch their own dinner,” he answers. “Monstrous things would as soon tear a rabbit to shreds as return it on a hunt.”

“Why in gods’ names do you keep them?”

Hannibal laughs, a sharp sound that draws a groan from the dog against him, drooping eyes raised to see what’s amiss and finding only more petting coming his way, instead.

“In truth they are not mine to sell,” Hannibal admits, amused by the friendly jeers that come his way for the words. Truly, as erastes, he has a right to anything Will owns, and to Will himself, yet it has never worked that way between them, always give and take, never forcing and claiming.

“The boy will have you on a leash soon as well,” one of the Greeks laughs, taking a long drink of his wine, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand before reaching for more meat - lamb, seasoned and dripping with oil - and regarding Hannibal with an amused expression. “Will you let him?”

“I doubt it is my place to leash a general,” Will replies, making his way into the study, now, having set aside his scrolls, cleaned his hands. He had spent a good while outside, relishing the heat of the sun while it was up, rare in the last few days of autumn, but showing itself, to celebrate - perhaps - as much as Greece is, for her luck.

“But I was not given the hounds lightly, I earned every single one.” Beside him, walks Blackie, having followed him from his bedroom where the other dogs were lounging. Riot is in the kitchen with Asherah, enjoying her scraps and cuddling, though Asherah would forever deny coddling the beast. Will raises an eyebrow at the gathered men and offers a smile, head ducked enough to be demure, eyes up through his fringe, long enough now to cover his eyes, not yet long enough to follow the rest of his hair into a tail-braid that rests between his shoulders at the top of his spine.

He waits a moment more before going to greet his erastes properly.

A smile caught in the corners of his eyes, Hannibal sets his kylix down on the table to stand as the boy - though looking less and less like one each day - approaches him with sweet subservience, eyes raised and head lowered. He stops, hands folded behind his back, and looks up only when Hannibal rests his fingertips beneath Will’s chin, his other hand far less careful as he slides it beneath Will’s chiton, cupping shamelessly between his legs.

He grins when Will gasps against his mouth, and their lips close softly together before Hannibal releases him and returns to his seat.

“Much better behaved than last time we saw him,” observes one of the men, and Hannibal snorts.

“I should hope so,” he counters. “The last time you saw him was what, two years back now? If I can train you sorry lot into soldiers, I can certainly train a boy into his manhood.”

“And how is your manhood coming along?” One of the men asks Will, wry amusement in his tone.

Will allows a curl of a smile before bending to reach for a piece of bread, setting it to his plate with a piece of lamb, the bread soaking up the oil quickly, before sitting back against Hannibal’s lap without coercion, without a word to suggest he should sit elsewhere. He sets his knees on either side of Hannibal’s and keeps his back straight, for now, tearing a piece of his bread to mop up the oil with it.

“Growing,” he says, earning laughter from those at the table as he chews his food, contented. It is easier, now, to talk with men of war when he has learned even a little of their art, when his muscles no longer tremble at the thought of lifting a spear, when his eyes now know where to aim an axe before letting it fly.

“The general has been patient with me, I’ve learned and persevered.” Will sucks the side of his thumb clean and tilts his head. “Learned to behave.”

“No longer a philosopher, then? Filling your head with nonsense?”

Will just smiles. “I fill my head with nonsense plenty, my belly with food often and once in a while find myself sated.”

“And I fill him with whatever I can,” Hannibal observes quietly, to genial laughter.

He had not, in truth, expected the boy to come to his lap. With chairs among the men and the boy less than a year away from being one himself, he would not have complained had Will sat upon a stool instead. Nor does he complain now, however, with Will heavy and warm across his leg, thighs wrapped around his own and feet twined about his ankle.

The general sinks an arm around Will to hold him close and leans to take up a handful of olives.

“You still haven’t answered the question, Hannibal,” notes one of the men. “About the leash.”

A brow lifts, and Hannibal’s smile widens a little. “What you do with your pornai is no business of ours.” Another laugh, and he spits an olive pit into his palm to set on the table, a row of them underway. “He defers to my wisdom in war and my knowledge of scholarly pursuits. I defer to his thighs.”

Hannibal spreads his hand over Will’s stomach, a bare movement of his thumb against the boy’s hip in reassurance, perhaps, even as he speaks of him in such a way. He’s surprised by how much it discomforts him to say such things, even to those who expect it, and where once he thought not at all of making grand pronouncements of how he’s had his boy. What existed before - what little existed before - and the tenderness that exists between them now are entirely different, and it feels crude to speak of it.

Another stroke of his thumb, and Hannibal allows a soft sigh to pass across Will’s shoulder.

“The girls ask about you, you know,” observes a soldier. “Those that have beared witness to what you bear yourself.”

Will swallows his mouthful and refrains from saying anything. He remembers well Berenike’s advice to listen and not speak, to regard and not participate. The most verbose and wise are those that do not speak at all. He does, however, part his lips for an olive as Hannibal feeds it to him.

“I’m surprised you’re still let in without me,” Hannibal comments, smiling wide. And Will knows that on some level he misses that, that life, that freedom, that pleasure. The ability and chance to enjoy the warm press of a woman against him after months and months of no one but men around him. Certain days, Will feels a stab somewhere in his heart of jealousy and regret both. Some days he suggests that Hannibal should go and enjoy himself.

Those nights end in early mornings, with Will panting his smile into the sheets.

“Without you we get the attention we’re worthy of,” one the men adds, holding out his cup for more wine, that a slave immediately comes to fill.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Hannibal responds amicably. “It does take the lot of you to equal up to the attention I needed singularly.”

They exchange a quick grin, no harm in the insults that fly as readily as the rest of the banter, and Hannibal lines up another olive pit before reaching for his kylix. He offers Will a sip from it, careful not to tip the wide cup too quickly, and only after his boy has had his does Hannibal take another sip.

He takes the opening as the men discuss their recent - paid, Hannibal does not remind them aloud - conquerings of the brothels to brush a kiss across Will’s shoulder, setting his cup down so he can have both hands on his boy, one across his belly, the other on his thigh. “How are the horses?”

Will turns his head just enough, suppressing an outward shiver at being touched so intimately here. “She takes the blanket now,” he tells Hannibal, of his own horse, “for as long as it takes the wind to cast it away.”

The animals have had it hard with the storms over the island, the rare instances of sun an immediate response from all within the household to let them free, to graze and stretch their legs and enjoy the fresh air. The dogs, too, let free to sprint towards the beach themselves, plowing into Will when he catches up. Hannibal’s join them, then, for want of freedom, they can set aside their distance for the younger dogs.

“The gray horse has grown lame, though there is nothing in his hoof to suggest infection. I think it’s age.” Wills’ eyes narrow a little, a silent apology, knowing how hard it will be for Hannibal to let go of any of the creatures once they grow too old. Will reaches for the wide cup to hold it in both hands, making himself appear smaller, younger than he is, when he brings it to his lips and watches Hannibal over the rim as he drinks.

Hannibal’s lips thin, a moment of displeasure at the news that he quickly buries. As close to family - to his own roots - as he has, it is an anguish for him when something happens to one of the stout little horses, though time will always take its toll. “Is he in pain?” Hannibal finally asks.

“He let me touch it,” Will murmurs, letting Hannibal take the cup from him, and dragging his hand across his lips. “I don’t imagine so.”

“Perhaps not in the hoof, then, but a tightness in the bones,” sighs Hannibal, drawing his nose against Will’s shoulder. “I will see him in the morning -”

“He’s someplace else entirely,” observes one of the men, laughing, and Hannibal raises his eyes as they crinkle in amusement.

“Can you blame me?”

“No, not in the slightest. With his hair so long, you could almost pretend he’s a girl,” laughs the man, and Hannibal reaches up a hand to wrap softly - without pulling - in the small braid that Will now wears. “We were just discussing the revolt.”

“You’ve not stopped discussing the revolt since you got here.”

“How long can such a thing go on?” asks the man.

“That’s entirely up to Egypt,” Hannibal considers, handing his kylix back to Will so that he can rest both hands, now, on his thighs, though no higher than that. “Certainly they’ve not the means to do real harm to Persia’s army but they could create a nuisance for longer than one might think, despite the numbers. It’s their home. They will defend it.” A pause, and Hannibal adds, “As we all would.”

A murmur of agreement and a moment of quiet. Will seeks for more wine from one of the slaves, thanks him with a smile, and finds one returned. It’s rare, he’s a quiet man, but he has an incredible mind for checkers.

“Perhaps their gods will help,” one of the men suggests, and there is a scoff in his tone but it’s hardly cruel, perhaps resigned, from being hopeful for too long. “Strange beasts with heads of men, men with heads of beasts. Fearsome beings, as Menes described them.”

“Did he go?” another asks, and Will notices, then, that the Egyptian is missing, not here as he had been the last time Will had seen them all gathered together.

“No storms would keep him back, you know the man.”

“He is a storm, himself, in battle.”

Nods of agreement, as Will leans far over the table to take up some of the goat cheese, more bread, almost unbalancing himself from Hannibal’s lap were it not for the man’s strong hands holding him back against him.

“The rebellion may last a while yet, then, with him at the helm of it.”

“We’ll drink to him, then,” Hannibal decides, lifting his cup. “May he keep the bastards at bay, or die in glory.” The men meet his toast with cheers and all drink, Will given his sip in turn after Hannibal this time, as the general sucks the sweetness of wine from his own lips.

“What one hopes to see,” he continues, “beyond the renewed strength of Egypt’s own, is other colonies following suit. Persia’s holdings are vast, over many peoples in many places, and if word travels that Egypt is keeping the Empire busy, others may revolt in kind.” Hannibal sets his hand against the line of olive pits and moves half to one side, half to the other. “The more split her army, the weaker she becomes.” He divides each half of pits by half again, smaller still, and regards them for a moment before raising his eyes again, with a faint smile. “One hopes, anyway.”

“How many make up her army?” asks one of the men, and Hannibal shakes his head.

“They were two hundred thousand strong when they claimed Scythia, if the histories are to be believed,” Hannibal responds.

The number is enough to drive the men to conversation, about how such an army could possibly be defeated, how many times - as Hannibal noted - it would need to be divided and in how many locations to be feasibly beaten. Hannibal does not tell them that the army alone must be twice or three times that number now. He does not tell them about the cavalry half that number, in addition. He does not tell them about the giant roaring beasts with tusks and long ensnaring noses that some have described coming from the east.

It would do little more than alarm, and Hannibal knows all too well how quickly such discord can spread.

Instead, he feels Will shift against him, gentle little shoves until he’s pressed against Hannibal’s chest, legs dangling on either side of Hannibal’s thighs. It’s a distraction, certainly, as much for Hannibal as for Will as well - the boy fears the very mention of war, especially after how close they had come to almost joining it.

Will turns, passes a piece of meat to Hannibal to take between his lips, tracing oily fingers over them after with a smile, a gentle bite to his own lip before Will turns away, reaches for something more to take, bends so his neck stretches long, his chiton stretches thin over him. The next morsel he takes himself, quietly sucking his fingers clean as he arches his back and reaches for the wine again, finding his hand gently tugged away from it, ducking his head like a child chastised.

He listens to the others, feels the rumble of Hannibal’s voice against his back as he, too, joins the discussion, but he relishes in his ability to distract the man’s hands, if not his mind.

And he does, eventually, ensnare both. Hannibal’s hands that brace against the boy’s thighs to keep him from toppling off soon spread and squeeze, fingertips inching beneath his tunic to trace patterns on soft skin. It’s only a matter of pressing higher, just a little at a time, that finally draws Hannibal’s voice from the conversation once more, and a shift of Will’s backside against Hannibal’s lap to draw his mind away as well.

“Watch your wine,” Hannibal murmurs to Will, turning a brief smile against the beautiful curve of his neck. “I would have you tonight, not so drunk that you fall asleep among your hounds.”

“You are two kylikes ahead of me,” Will replies, turning just so to feel lips against him, sighing, pleased, as Hannibal breathes him in. “And I would have you have me, not fall heavy into bed and not move again ‘til dawn.”

Will turns, just enough to catch Hannibal’s eye and sets a piece of bread between his lips, just against his tongue, taking his time to pull it free, bite and chew it before turning back to the table. One of the Greeks watches Will even as he keeps his ear in the conversation, the same one that had allowed his eyes to devour the boy when he had first met him, and Will meets his eyes only long enough to feel himself blush, before he directs them away.

If Hannibal notices the look, he gives no indication, raising a hand to press along the tie that surrounds Will’s waist and pulls his tunic against him. “As if I cannot hold my wine,” Hannibal snorts, a puff of warmth against Will’s hair, just behind his ear. “As if you are my wife, admonishing me for my drunkeness.”

He does not linger on the words, but lets them slip easily, lubricated by the copious kylikes that he’s had already. A kiss is pressed behind Will’s ear, another against the back of his neck where Hannibal pushes his braid aside.

“Near enough,” Hannibal decides, grinning against the boy’s sun-dark skin, before turning back to the conversation, just quick enough to catch the eye of the man watching his eromenos. Hannibal smiles, genially, as pleased that Will is so desirable as he is to know that Will is his own. “No more talk of wars that are not ours to fight,” Hannibal tells the table at large. “All I’ve heard you discuss is whores and battle, surely you’re men of greater substance than only that.”

“Would you have us speak philosophy?” one of the men laughs, Will hooks his ankles around Hannibal’s calves and holds his thighs spread as he moves to take a fig, some cheese to have with it.

“You speak of it like you fear it more than war,” Will comments, before taking a bite of what he has selected, savoring it as he does the eyes on him, amused yet attentive, allowing him to speak, now, as a man, not teased for his words as a boy. “If one cannot wage the war within their own minds, against boredom and ignorance and lack of knowledge, if one fears that more than a sword, I pity him.”

And he is clever, this little thing that sits against his general, much more so, now, with histories and languages in his mind, with strategies memorized and techniques learned. Will has read extensively, borrowing scrolls, purchasing them with Hannibal’s permission and to his delight, and he finds himself contented to be watched, even as familiar hands seek to lift his tunic further, even as his cheeks flush.

“There is a difference,” the man responds, stepping to the boy’s challenge with good humor, “between fear and apathy. I do not fear wars of words any more than I fear wars of swords, but it is a particularity of the upper classes to convince themselves that they are one in the same - that to banter at a symposium is as difficult as dueling with blades.”

Will’s smile widens, but he trains it smaller, eyes narrowing shrewdly as the debate begins. “You conflate difficulty with deadliness,” Will points out, licking a crumb of cheese from his thumb. “But even still, I said myself that it’s silly to fear the workings of the mind over that of weapons.”

“Then what is your point?” asks the man, yielding this much, at least.

“My point is that one surely can’t occupy all of their time with training and brothels,” Will grins, and he wins the laughter of the table, including the man with whom he so briefly sparred.

“A fair point,” he agrees.

Hannibal ducks his head to hide his smile against Will’s shoulder, and murmurs softly, “Remarkable boy.”

“Then what should we speak of, philosopher, if not our conquests?” another asks, watching Will just as intensely as his brother, both curious and hungry as Will’s blush darkens and he is allowed the entire room, to play with and control as he would choose. Mask upon mask passes over his face before he settles on this new one, this new name of ‘philosopher’ when he feels far from those he holds in the highest esteem.

He takes up the cup to drink again, is proud when he doesn’t choke as Hannibal’s fingers tickle higher up his thighs.

“Of the things you did not conquer,” he suggests, squirming just enough, masking it with another reach for food as Hannibal walks his fingers closer and closer over sensitive skin.

“And why would we relive the failures?”

“Because you do not forget them,” Will points out, chewing carefully before swallowing, replying to the room at large, all eyes on him as Hannibal’s hands are against him. “You linger and consider them far more than you do your victories. As men of privilege, and men of wisdom, you will learn more of yourselves through the things you have let slip than the things you have gained and own.”

He allows a smile, entirely coy, entirely tempting, as he ducks his head again, parts his lips on a sigh. “It says more about you, each, when you go to seek and do not gain, than when you return, a conquest marked and noted.” Will flicks his eyes up to the two men watching him intently, the remark clearly aimed at them, before he swallows a soft sound and suppresses a shiver, and leans back against Hannibal further.

The general arches a brow at his boy’s proclamations, smile curving his lips before he turns his attention back to his brothers-in-arms, who allow themselves to seem mildly impressed by the rejoinder.

“And if I have turned my failures into conquests?” theorizes one of the men.

“All of them?” Will blinks, reaching for Hannibal’s kylix. “That’s very impressive.”

Hannibal catches Will’s wrist before he can steal another sip of wine, and loops Will’s hand back around his neck, settling his chin on his eromenos’ shoulder.

“I do not owe it to a boy to outline my less successful moments,” the other man admits, and Will inclines his head in polite agreement.

“You do not,” he murmurs, “but do not hide it from yourself, at least.”

“There is a fine line,” Hannibal interjects, to put an end to the debate, “between bravado and foolhardiness. I am glad to surround myself with those who boast the former, none so short-sighted to suffer the latter.” His kylix secured from Will’s grasping fingers, Hannibal lifts it again in toast and is met with a round of agreement, and all drink as Hannibal slips his hand properly beneath Will’s chiton and palms the boy’s cock with one long tug.

It takes a lot of Will’s not insignificant willpower not to make a sound, but Will manages, shifting his thighs further apart as Hannibal continues to stroke him, teasing light little things that leave Will’s cheeks dark and his lips parted to catch his breath. He wishes he had the excuse of wine, claiming that was what was coloring his cheeks. But he knows that all of the men know better.

Their wine is refilled and the lamb is taken away to be replaced by fresh cool fruit and berries, those that had survived the storm. Will reaches for them, biting his lip as Hannibal curls his hand and strokes the silky skin behind his balls instead.

“Suddenly so quiet, philosopher,” one of the men teases him. Will just grins, wriggling in Hannibal’s lap when he sits back against him once more.

“Silence is quite often the most profound thing one can say," he counters, to more laughter, though none is malicious or cruel. There is a strange respect that Will can feel from the older men, perhaps simply for his tenacity, for his fearlessness to speak out and be heard, for his ability to accept his own defeat, be it with words or weapons.

Hannibal gently rubs the tip of his thumb over the head of Will’s cock and the younger man shudders this time, entirely involuntary, eyes up to see knowing looks directed at him at the head of the table before he flicks his hair from his eyes and grasps Hannibal’s hand with his own, to pull him away.

“Gentlemen,” he says, slightly breathless. "If you’ll excuse us. Help yourselves as long as you like. I shan’t keep the general long, but we have business that needs tending to.”

Will slips to the floor with more grace than he had expected to manage, adjusts his tunic and grasps Hannibal by his sleeve to drag him from the table as laughter and playful jeers follow them, whistles and banging against the table. Will can’t help but grin, blushing hard yet entirely composed, as he yanks Hannibal into the corridor and presses against him to kiss, up on his toes to reach him.

"A leash indeed!" One of the men calls, to uproarious laughter.

Hannibal grins snarling against Will's lips, ducking to grab him by the backs of his thighs and hoist him hard against the wall. Slender legs curl around his hips and Hannibal presses his nose alongside his boy's, eyes wide and dark.

"You are magnificent," Hannibal praises him, shamelessly hard now as he drives himself roughly between Will's legs. "Ferocious of mind and fierce of spirit. Beautiful and brazen."

Hannibal pulls their tunics aside to feel their cocks rub hot together, groaning against Will's mouth. He is a boy, still, but only by social construct of their remaining time together, a matter of months now. Will is long-limbed and strong, with coarse hair between his legs and along the inside of his thighs. It is only by the resolute removal of his facial hair - noticed by Hannibal, but never once mentioned - that he looks a boy at all, rather than a man.

Hannibal could hardly care, and shudders as Will rolls his hips in response.

Will clings to him, ankles crossed together and thighs trembling as he arches his back, wanton and breathless, grinning at the praise and moaning his pleasure. This is nothing like the last time he had encountered Hannibal's friends, where he had been carried off as a prize to be claimed, when the man had scarcely touched him at all. No, now he is what his title in society claims he is; proud and clever, able to be demure and tempting all at once. An eromenos to be had and who has, all on his own.

The sound Will makes carries, down the hall to the study where the men continue to talk, louder, now, more raucous and amused, as Will rubs himself deliberately over the older man against him.

"And you allow a leash," he sighs, laughing softly as his fingers grasp Hannibal's hair and his lips part just against him, sharing breath and tickling brushes as Hannibal curls his hand around them both and pulls another breathless whine from Will.

“When it’s held so beautifully, how could I not?” murmurs Hannibal, grinning against Will’s mouth before their lips close together again, to taste his little sounds as Hannibal’s hand turns over both their lengths, languid strokes that weaken his knees and force his feet to spread to stabilize Will against the wall.

With the boy growing as he is, there will come a point - sooner than Hannibal wishes it arrive - that he can no longer hold him so easily, but for now he is slender, still, and slight and Hannibal relishes the sensation of feeling Will’s limbs curl around him. He is held by Will, entirely, in far more ways than only the physical, and finds no fault in it as others might for their understanding of each other to have gone far beyond what’s needed by their bodies.

It pleases him to feel Will pressed against him.

It pleases him more to know that someone so clever and so kind has taken to him so wholly.

“Moan for me,” Hannibal purrs against Will’s neck, where he grazes with teeth and lips. “Let them hear you and know.”

Will does, cheeks bright and lips parted as hands seek to tug Hannibal's clothes, fingers seek to leave red marks against his skin. He is entirely shameless, now, in his rutting, his need, his expression of his own pleasure that Hannibal pulls from him in steady, firm strokes until he’s shaking.

"Let them know," Will gasps against him. “Let them wish."

It is all so reckless, fun and easy to play this way. Just close. Just them. Will hates thinking of the months ahead simply because they signal an end to this, a parting that is expected, that should be looked forward to with pride and anticipation, not dread and a heavy heart.

Three years of accumulated experience together, ending in a presented panoply, being sent off to the only war none of them can really escape.

Will hates thinking of it, so he kisses Hannibal instead, feels the coiling tight in his belly as he grows closer and harder and slicker against Hannibal, toes curling in his sandals, thighs tightening around Hannibal as he near whimpers his release. The sound draws high, soft, a sound Hannibal has drawn from Will in intimate early mornings, or pressed together in the night.

Hannibal sighs harsh against Will’s throat and hushes him softly though both know he doesn’t mean it. He kisses up Will’s neck, beneath his jaw, and turns his head aside to breathe rough against his cheek. Little spasms of muscle curl Will’s legs tighter, resonate in Hannibal’s own trembling thighs as he strokes them in tandem, as both their hips rock together. Will’s voice pitches a note higher and Hannibal watches as color cascades across his face.

“Here, Will?” Hannibal laughs.

“Yes,” comes Will’s breathless reply, grinning.

“Bedroom?”

“No,” laughs Will, and he snares his arms tighter around Hannibal’s neck. “Please, just -”

Fingers tightening, Hannibal groans his pleasure, low and rumbling, as heat spills wet from his cock to slick them both, body stilled but for that twitching release, eyes open only enough that he can see Will’s lips slacken, parted wide as his breath hitches.

He is beautiful, always. As he traces characters and recites them, Neuri growing more fluent by the day, as he weighs a weapon in his hand before lifting it to spar with Hannibal, as he comforts the horses, runs his palm over the swelling belly of the one with foal, smiling, soothing, gentle. But here, both fierce and delicate, Will is extraordinary.

Will stops Hannibal's hand only when both grow too sensitive, head ducked to press forehead to forehead with the older man as he tries to catch his breath.

"You should return to your guests, erastes," Will breathes, seeking with his toes for the floor, to hold his own weight again. He's smiling, turns his head to nuzzle against Hannibal. No shame, that he sends the older man away, rather a pride in allowing him to return so soon after a personal victory.

"You won't return with me?"

Will just smiles wider, pushes back enough so he has space to move, and works his belt free, tugs the ties on his tunic to loosen it before peeling it from his skin to bare himself entirely in the corridor.

"No," Will says, folding his clothes into a ball between his hands, before allowing it to fall to the floor. "I will wait instead." He tilts his head, eyes narrowed in amusement at Hannibal’s expression, before kissing him once more, a chaste little thing, and making his way - blissfully nude - to Hannibal's chambers. 

“You will be the death of me,” Hannibal declares gravely taking up the boy's chiton to wipe his hand on. He watches as Will goes, can feel his smile even with his eromenos’ back to him, and shares a smile of his own as Will slinks onto the bed on all fours and spreads himself flat against it, bright eyes turned to Hannibal over his shoulder.

Hannibal tosses his chiton at him with a snort, smile lingering as Will laughs and Hannibal returns to his brothers, who greet him with cheers.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The horse delights in nuzzling against the front of his chiton, seeking more treats, before Will lets her free and sets the brushes away. She takes the blanket, now, without incident or anger, the rope no longer frightens her if Will is near or holding it. She has grown used to his reassuring weight against her side when the thing is around her neck, grown used to how he calms her, so now she stays calm when he leads her by the same rope._

Will doesn’t remember the last time he found grooming the animals a chore. He knows he did, once, he knows his arms ached and he cursed quietly every morning when Hannibal made him go groom the horses, feed them and muck their stalls after. He knows, he thinks he remembers, but those sensations are so foreign, now, so entirely wrong, that he cannot fathom them.

He lets another of the older horses out into the field and calls after her in Neuri not to bother her brother. His lameness is showing itself more prominently, and as both he and Hannibal had thought, it is in his bones where the problem lies.

The youngest horses - no longer foals, though Will supposes he will always see them that way - enjoy their grooming, lifting their heads and kicking softly at the dirt as Will makes quick work of their bodies and manes, tails wait till evening. His own waits her turn, reaching as far as her neck can stretch to nose against him when Will’s close, drawing a grin from the boy and a quiet admonition even as he palms her one of the small apples from the table.

“Spoiled creature,” he tells her, taking his time to untangle her mane, to rub behind her ears as she flicks her tail and snorts. “You will grow fat and it will be entirely your fault for being such a beautiful girl that I can’t resist feeding you.” He tries another name for her, a Neuri word, to see if she will take to it, but finds no response.

The horse delights in nuzzling against the front of his chiton, seeking more treats, before Will lets her free and sets the brushes away. She takes the blanket, now, without incident or anger, the rope no longer frightens her if Will is near or holding it. She has grown used to his reassuring weight against her side when the thing is around her neck, grown used to how he calms her, so now she stays calm when he leads her by the same rope.

Will watches her take to the field, grown so big and so proud in the herd. Hannibal had allowed Will his time to break her in, it would never take so long otherwise, but he hates taking her freedom from her, even if it will be in return for another kind.

Hannibal keeps his distance, even as several of the horses trot closer and snort their greetings towards him. He doesn’t call to Will, but settles with his arms folded against the fence, fingers splaying beneath the soft seeking noses of the horses who search him for treats. The filly has grown, and so has the boy who leads her now in slow circles, blanket resting comfortably against her back, murmuring in words Hannibal cannot hear but that prick the horse’s ears back towards him.

Only after they’ve completed several loops around the paddock does Hannibal speak, calm and curious, when Will passes him again.

“Will you try her today?”

“The ground is soft enough to land on, I suppose I could.” Comes the reply, a brief smile Hannibal’s way before Will slides the blanket from his filly and strokes her nose gently in praise. She is a beautiful girl, now, very much like her mother in grace, her father in coloring. Her temper is entirely her own, but she comes to Will, now, as any of his hounds do, stays near when he goes to the fields to help gather straw to store for the winter.

A boy and his horse, growing up together.

“You will need to show me how,” Will asks Hannibal, turning to look at him with a smile. “I doubt she will take kindly to it at first.”

“I’m certain she will not,” muses Hannibal. He turns his back to the fence and hoists himself onto it, turning his legs over carefully so as not to snag on the rough wood, and sending the horses trotting as he drops into the paddock. A soft cluck to settle Will’s horse, though she still throws her head high and watches him warily, and Hannibal takes the rope from Will.

“I wish there were a trick to it,” he admits, winding the rope around his palm and elbow, palm and elbow, to shorten it until he’s face to face with the horse. A murmur in rough Neuri and he strokes her nose, glancing past to Will. “I will endeavor to hold her still. You will endeavor not to slip from her.”

He reaches past Will to tug off the blanket and rests it over his shoulder, careful to keep his feet back from her hooves that drive uneasy into the ground.

Will laughs, and raises his head to regard the creature before him, tense and wary already at the new positioning, at both of them being so near at once - it is never a good sign, in her eyes, considering last time it was to pull a stone from her hoof and she found herself entirely pinned and unable to kick out.

Will soothes hands over her back and neck, murmuring gentle things as he had when he pressed against her, when he set the blanket on her, when he introduced her to anything new that might spook or worry her, as he knows this will. A moment more of gentleness, praise and warm promises, before Will sets his palms against her back and hoists himself up, slipping a leg over to straddle her, and finds - predictably - that she is entirely not amenable to the idea of being ridden.

“Stubborn thing,” Will laughs, stroking her despite her twitching, despite the tension that thrums through her entire body as she prepares to buck and kick. “I once squirmed just as you did, and I fall from a height if I fall, you run away unharmed, stay still.”

She’s big enough now that Hannibal has to work to keep her still, and while he can control her head, he can’t control her hooves. They begin to raise, two at a time, body and breath heaving beneath the weight of the boy who sits astride her, and the first kick of both back legs at once sends Will forward, but he lands, sliding down her withers to his feet again rather than simply toppling headfirst.

“Good,” Hannibal tells him, tells her as well, both of them jittery now, though Will steels his jaw to try and hide it. “She’s going to be wary of you now, so you’ll need to be -”

He doesn’t have time to finish speaking before Will has slung his leg up over the little horse again, lucky at least that she’s several hands shorter than most Greek horses, and luckier still that his legs have lengthened along with her own. This time when she bucks, Will settles his weight back, leaning nearly parallel to her hindquarters, as Hannibal turns in slow circles to allow her enough movement that she isn’t hurt by the restraint.

It becomes a test of patience for them both, the horse determined to make her displeasure known, Will determined to make her understand that this is how it will be, once she settles. His thighs ache, holding against the horse, his fingers remain resolutely gentle, despite his desire to want to clasp onto her mane and hold on - it will hurt her, confuse her, and she is already unhappy.

He grows used to the rhythm of how she moves, to move counter to her, to stay balanced, but it’s exhausting, and she shows no signs of wanting to stop, determined as she had been with the rope to fight until she couldn’t anymore.

Eventually, Will slips from her back again, his tunic clinging to the sweat on his back, hair a mess, windswept and damp. He takes the rope from Hannibal and soothes a hand over her nose, up behind her ears until the filly stills, snorting and kicking at the ground, turning her head away from him when Will tries to touch her again.

“Stubborn girl.” It sounds more like praise than it does rebuke, and Will smiles, resting his forehead to hers before loosening the knot of the rope and letting her run free. For a time at least, until he can catch her to do it again. And again. As he had with everything else.

“That creature is tireless,” Will pants, watching her flick her head in the field, bending to take up the scraggly grass from the hard earth. Behind him Hannibal makes a soft sound of agreement.

“Well suited for a tireless boy,” Hannibal comments, drawing a hand through Will’s hair as Will laughs, turns to him to rest his weight against the older man before following him to the bare ring to train, instead.

-

The colder months make for more time training, the sun not scalding them if it comes out at all, and Will finds he can ignore the exhaustion if he concentrates hard enough on his lesson. He has learned to work with the sword, though he doesn’t prefer it as his weapon. He is good with the shield, able to beat back Hannibal enough if that is his only weapon, enough to defend himself, at least. The bow Will cannot train with for long, arms shaking and exhausted from notching and holding the arrows before firing. Though he is not a bad shot, he is far from a good one.

What Will prefers to work with are the axes, two little things or the long two-handed weapon. They are quick and light for him, easy to move with, easier still to throw. Entirely foreign weapons to this army, but Will has found Hannibal beyond caring, himself just the same. It is the axes, now, that he works with, turning his wrist over and over, the weapon balanced precisely in the cradle of his palm.

Hannibal circles the boy, watching him warm his wrists and loosen them, just cold enough that their breath can be seen clouding in the air. “Slowly,” he tells Will, standing near him enough to adjust the grip a little, releasing him again to watch. “Better.”

He draws a breath and regards the equipment they’ve dragged out to the circle. Spear and sword and shield, and it’s the latter that Hannibal takes up now, with a grunt. He tilts his head side to side, a stretch to limber himself, and settles his weight - most on his back foot, less on the fore - to stand braced across from Will, who watches him in the middle distance. Focused, but not paying attention to any particular area of the man. Taking in the whole, rather than part.

Hannibal considers his options, and takes up his spear, as well, held shoulder-height.

A step forward, and Will’s flourishes cease, axes held at the ready. Hannibal can’t help but grin, even as Will’s expression remains stoic to the point of seeming absent, to anyone who doesn’t know better. A step to the side and Will pivots, no more than the minimum of movement necessary to keep Hannibal centered in front of him.

He counts the beat of his heart, his breath, four for every one, steady and still until he moves, restrained still from the speed of which Hannibal knows himself capable, but fast enough with the length of spear that Will is forced to step aside. An easy dodge, a predictable counter, swung towards Hannibal’s back and caught readily on the shield. From beneath it, Hannibal’s grin widens.

“Good.”

They reset.

He does not let Will get behind him this time, turning agile to catch him in the side with the point of his spear and just missing as Will curves his body and steps nearer, making the distance of the spear a hinderance rather than a boon. The curve of the axe catches the edge of Hannibal’s shield and Will pulls, hard enough that Hannibal is forced to release it from his wrist, and leave him armed only with the spear. The shield falls with a thump against the dry dust and Hannibal moves quickly behind Will, catching him by the waist just as he turns, and bringing their mouths to meet.

Will lets his weapons rest heavy behind him, out of the way to not harm either of them as he allows himself to be kissed, laughing quietly when he’s released.

“Do you plan to do that with all those you fight?” he asks, a jest and narrow-eyed amusement. “You would let them get so close.” Will raises one of the axes again, gentle and slow, sets it against Hannibal’s arm, hooked over but not heavy. “You would lose skin, find bones broken and lose a lot of blood for your attentions.”

He turns his wrist just enough to snag skin but not break it, before taking the weapon away and kissing Hannibal himself, this time, a lingering thing that speaks volumes of silent promises. They part enough for Will to step back, bend to retrieve Hannibal’s shield for him, heavy and battered, having seen enough of war and training both.

“Perhaps I will do it when I catch you,” Hannibal tells Will, takes his shield with a smile. “Teach you not to fall to distraction.”

Will laughs, a pleased and warm thing, and bites his lip, cheeks warm, before setting his feet and turning his wrist again, adjusting his grip on one of the axes to hold it closer to the end of the handle, more to swing than strike.

“Then catch me again, we’ll see.”

“Shall I try?” Hannibal asks, brows lifting as he drops his spear aside, to take up his sword instead. Blunted, for training only, but Will knows well enough the bruises it leaves when he’s been caught with it. “Truly?”

“Truly,” grins Will, before smoothing his expression once more and widening his gaze.

Far more at risk for Hannibal, now, sparring a partner with proper edges on his weapons and still possessing an unpredictability in his relative inexperience. Unusual movements, not the honed muscle memory of a trained soldier, forcing Hannibal to think quickly as Will takes the first stride, turning an axe outward to hook Hannibal’s blade. Metal scrapes metal but a turn of Hannibal’s wrist stops the weapon from being trapped, shield raised enough to deflect the second axe as it splits the air towards him.

An opening that both sense, as Hannibal stabs towards Will’s midsection but the boy pivots on his front foot, back toes scraping a triangle into the earth. He rebounds from it, but Hannibal’s blade is up, tip pointed towards the boy’s face, his shoulder, his throat, whatever presents itself first, and Will snarls, hoisting his axe at an angle above his head. Hannibal’s blade skims the wood, catches in the axe’s curve, and he pulls it free as Will swings wide across his middle. A step back saves him, another then, on the defense, but Hannibal’s eyes sharpen.

The moment slows for him, and though Will’s intentions are sure, his strikes following in kind, it is entirely too transparent for one who has known only this for the whole of his life. The flurry seems to fall slow, rebuffed by Hannibal’s shield, until he shoves forward hard enough to set Will off his stance, back towards Hannibal.

Four beats for every breath.

Hannibal’s shield thuds against the ground, one of Will’s axes clattering alongside it, and he presses his blade beneath the boy’s chin, nearly uprooting him from his feet before he stops himself, and holds.

“Very good, Will.”

Will is panting, eyes wide and lips parted to draw in more air, up on his toes to avoid the blade though he knows Hannibal will not hurt him with it, cannot do him damage with the side of it, without it being sharp, but the instinct, that he’s held at sword-point, partially disarmed and defenseless sends his blood rushing in his ears.

He swallows, just once.

“Not good enough,” he says, and there is a brief disappointment in his tone, a brief tension in his smile. It is unfair, on himself, he knows, to compare his skills to someone of Hannibal’s training, of his experience, but he cannot see past his failings when he continually fails. Always one weapon down, shield dropped, sword too heavy or arrow off center.

“Will.”

Will shrugs, moving to step back before he’s caught, gently, by the arm and pulled back.

“It is the first time I have sparred with you with the speed and strength I use in battle and you did not falter,”

“I lost my axe, I should have seen -”

“You would have lost your head,” Hannibal tells him, eyes narrowed in pleasure, “not two months ago, and now you can withstand me as I rain hell upon you with a sword.”

“Not for long,” Will laments, and it turns his lips, pulls a sigh from Hannibal before he lifts the boy’s chin again, waits for Will to look at him, displeased as he is by the notion.

“For longer than any boy should have to, in war,” he tells him gently, “and with poise and grace that few have, when they do.”

Will hums, says nothing, and finds Hannibal turning away from him when he leans up to kiss him, frowning, he tries again, catching only the man’s look of amusement before his expression clears. Will huffs a breath, turns his own eyes away before allowing his jaw to work and turning back to his mentor.

“I will get better.”

“You will.”

“Can I have my distraction now, please?”

“Do you feel you’ve earned it?”

“Do you?” Will asks instead, and Hannibal tosses Will’s axe to him, before gathering his shield.

“Yes,” answers Hannibal. “But that’s not the question I asked. Do you feel as though you’ve earned it?”

Will presses his tongue against his bottom lip, and licks it between his teeth. He shakes his head, and Hannibal smiles.

“Then we will spar until you feel as though you have,” Hannibal decides. “Only you know the truth of that. But you had me on my heels before, and I could do little more than defend and wait for you to open. And I know the truth of that.”

Hannibal does not lessen his speed, now that Will has asked for it in its entirety, and the sun arches long across the sky, their shadows lengthening, until they are worked into a sweat. Blade against blade, axe head scraping shield, shield against body and axe around ankle, finally, when Will uses his size to counter Hannibal’s own and uproots him before he can shift his weight, driving a shoulder into Hannibal’s belly and sending them both to the ground.

Lips curled in a snarl and the air knocked from his lungs, Hannibal brings his blade towards Will’s ribs, only to find the weapon’s butt trapped again by the axe’s quick turn in Will’s wrist, held upside down now. The boy jerks his arm and Hannibal’s sword falls to the ground, his other arm held in the shield still, and Hannibal can do no more than watch as Will sets his weapon now to Hannibal’s throat in turn, knees settling into his arms to hold him down.

“And now?” Hannibal asks, eyes dark with delight and his chest so full of pride that he feels his ribs will crack with it.

Will’s breathing is ragged, exhausted and pleased both, and he presses just barely harder beneath Hannibal’s chin before tossing his axe aside and leaning in to kiss Hannibal hard enough to push him back against the ground with a grunt. It’s brutal, as their sparring had gotten, Will’s lips parting Hannibal’s as he bites, sucks, growls against him and Hannibal _lets_ him. Will takes his fill before pressing their foreheads together, more breathless than when he started, eyes closed as he swallows and tries to catch his breath.

Hannibal works his arms free from beneath him, Will lifting his knees to allow for the movement, and presses hot palms against Will’s shoulders, down his back, lower still to hook behind his thighs and hold him close this way. And Will lets him.

“I can be better,” Will whispers, but the regret is gone from his tone, the anger vanished from it. He turns to nuzzle against Hannibal for a moment before smiling as his fingers start to seek over his thighs, higher still beneath the warm sweat-damp fabric of Will’s tunic. Will brings one hand down to still him, hold his wrist gently and feel Hannibal’s pulse there, too.

“Have you earned it?” Will whispers, smiling down at the man beneath him, the man he had brought down to the ground because he had persisted until he had managed.

“More than,” Hannibal murmurs, rocking Will forward with his hips until they kiss again. There is no shame his defeat, bested by a quick hand and an even more agile mind. He can’t help but recall how hopeless Will felt - they both felt, really - when years before Will could hardly hold a weapon longer than an hour before his muscles gave way, let alone follow drills without frustration stymieing him. The resentment was tangible, a refusal to accept the lessons at all, let alone that he may some day need them, until his stubbornness became confidence, and he saw his own improvement.

As the former begat the latter, so the latter gave way to the former. Again and again until now Hannibal lies pleased in his defeat beneath his clever pupil, yielding to his hungry mouth as he did the edge of his axe.

And yet the resistance now has shifted, from Will’s lack of desire for war to Hannibal’s want for him not to experience it. He wishes for the boy to become strong and skilled, to be able to defend himself and his family should he need it, but the thought of sending Will onto the field of battle cools the fire in Hannibal’s heart. If it needed a name, it would be fear. Fear to see Will changed by taking the life another. Fear to see his beautiful mind made dull by the unconscionable destruction in the aftermath. Fear that he might misstep and be caught -

Hannibal swallows hard, eyes closed as Will watches him find himself again.

“Now I have fallen to distraction,” Hannibal murmurs, sitting up to feel Will’s legs curl around his waist, palm still hot between his legs.

"A bath, then," Will suggests, sitting flushed and spread against Hannibal before kissing against the lines on his forehead to soothe them away. He is tired, he is tired to his bones, and he can feel the familiar twist within Hannibal himself, the part that wars with itself between pride and fear of Will being better at his sparring, potentially a good soldier.

“A bath and then bed.”

“Are you so hungry for rest?” Hannibal asks him, amused, and Will grins, wicked.

“Bed,” he repeats, tilts his head, “not sleep. I will not grant you sleep until our hungers turn.”

-

Slowly, slowly, the filly bucks less, moving to shake Will from her, or jerk or turn - on one occasion, on a very bad day - to try and bite him on the leg where he sat atop her. But slowly she settles, grows used to the body she knows beside her as above her, now. She accepts treats as Will feeds them to her, leaning close to pass her pieces of apple, she walks, albeit reluctantly, when Hannibal leads and Will sits astride. Slowly they grow used to each other, the boy and his horse, as what they are meant to be.

As the days grow colder, Will goes from walking her around the fields to taking her on slow treks to the beach and back. Then, slowly, faster up and down the sandline, watching her relish in the speed, still growing used to his weight. He does not wear a saddle, does not even train her with one. He grows used to commanding her with gentle shifts of his own body, turning one way or another, a soft press of thighs, a soothing drawing of his fingers behind her ears.

Words unnecessary.

But one word he does give her, and that word she grows to recognize.

“Vih’r?” Hannibal regards the little filly as she paws the ground and Will sets his hands against her behind as he leans back to look at Hannibal. “You tempt fate naming her after a storm.”

“She will not accept another name,” Will says, amused, and he had tried, softer names, kinder and gentler names, but she would answer only to this one, ears pricked and tail flicking as dark eyes fixed on Will for instruction.

Hannibal threads his fingers through Vih’r’s mane, and though she tosses her head she allows him to touch, though far less readily than she allows it from Will.

“May she be as swift and as strong as her namesake,” Hannibal responds, stepping towards Will as he leans forward, hands against her withers. Will catches Hannibal’s chin now, and he allows it with a hum, lips sealing softly together. From man to boy, from the earth to he who is born to the sky on horseback. Even in the cold Will’s wild hair shines radiant from the sun behind him, and Hannibal sighs, soft.

“And,” he adds, “may you live up to her expectations.” His eyes nearly close as Will’s fingers spread across his cheek, through his beard snowed through with grey, and he turns to grasp Will’s wrist and bring his lips against the boy’s palm. He lingers there, lets whatever gods or spirits hear his words do with them what they will, and only reluctantly steps back, unable to keep the pride from his smile or the crinkling of his eyes.

“Show me, stubborn creatures.”

With no more than a quick grin, Will shifts his body forward and they’re off, an uneasy trot that still nearly unseats the boy, before settling into a quick canter that takes them amongst the olive grove. Will’s braid flies behind him, as does her tail behind her, one in the same and as meant for each other as any two beings Hannibal has known.

He does not let himself linger with that thought, but rather waits, contented, for the two to return.

The horse, as her name suggests, flies when she is given the freedom to, entirely contented to pound the earth as she speeds between the trees, the barest movements of Will’s thighs to move her one way or the other. For the most part, he trusts her instincts to take them safely through the trees without bodily harm. She is an agile thing, and with Will’s direction, manages to weave between the trees, hooves carefully placed to remain balanced as she does.

Will does not constrain her to the grove, lets her run through it and back, towards Hannibal and past him to the field, circling and speeding, Will’s voice carried by the wind as he howls his pleasure, as he feels adrenaline flood his system, riding Vih’r after what feels like - and has been, though not so many - years of allowing her to grow used to him, allowing himself to trust her to carry him.

When they slow to a trot again, Will nearly falls forward against her neck, laughing, knowing he will have to teach her to run slower, to keep up with a company of other horses, not just have her way as she is so used to, here. She is a horse of speed and wind, slowing down is a messy process.

“She’s -” Will shrugs, strokes the filly’s neck before dismounting, watching her run back to the field to graze again, no longer forced to bear a rider. “She’s getting there. She no longer tries to upend me into the soil.”

Hannibal considers her, and for just as long, considers Will. “I rather know the feeling.”

“Of being upended?”

“Not into the soil,” Hannibal muses. “To an empty bed, but an equally stroppy creature.”

Will grins, arms folded as if in mirror to Hannibal. “Patience, general. Has it paid off as much for you as it has for me?”

“Entirely so,” he agrees. “And yet - as you said - it’s getting there.”

Hannibal doesn’t need to look to know Will’s blushing when he watches him sidelong, allowing his considerate amusement to linger peaceably instead. But so near as this is still never near enough, and after a moment more, he reaches for Will to bring him close by his shoulders, chin atop his head. “Quite a long way you’ve come from hardly being able to hold on, even with me seated behind you,” Hannibal tells him.

Will smiles, tilts his head a little so Hannibal leans closer, cheek to Will’s own. Quite a way he has come for a lot of things; horses and caring for them, the patience that breeds in a person, the hounds and earning them with hard work and only a little bit of coercion, weapons and his skills with those, his knowledge of history, of strategy and mathematics, languages, scrolls littering his room more than when he had first settled there.

And Hannibal.

A man he knows by heart, when he had not seen him at all, in those baths, had not even bothered to look.

“Every moment worth it, despite the stubbornness,” Will tells him, letting his eyes close as he’s held, secure. No kisses or affectionate gestures, just a promise there, that he will be held, and he takes it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "One does not ask for gifts," Will reminds him, "or they are not gifts at all." A swallow and Will lets Hannibal's wrist go to set his own hands to the bed, kisses against Hannibal’s rough stubbled cheek, his jaw, his neck as the gentle touching continues, sending a delicious shiver through the boy. 
> 
> "I have also read," he whispers, words rougher, "that it is extremely bad luck to reject a gift willingly given." Will nuzzles against the older man, assuring him, needing him even as trembling finally breaks through his skin and a blush further heats it. "Let me spoil you," he sighs.

“Are you certain you don’t want me to do it?”

Hannibal gives Asherah a dry look, but inclines his head politely. “Quite certain.”

“Have you ever taken measurements before?”

The look is now shared equally with Will, and the general keeps the curse he’d rather share with them quiet, for now. “Yes, Will, I’m familiar with how it’s done.”

“Being familiar with a concept isn’t the same as having skill for it,” Asherah points out, and Hannibal considers the strength required to simply throttle himself with the length of cordage instead. She offers Hannibal a slight smile when he turns to her.

“Write, Asherah. And let me do this.”

The cord is marked in increments, and Hannibal loops it around Will chest before reading off the number of lines dyed into the soft string. Lower, then, around his belly, Hannibal spreads his palm to lay the string flat - ensuring, certainly, that it is flat as he rubs once more - and reads that measurement aloud as well.

Will tries not to squirm, in equal parts excited for this as he is dreading it. Months, still, until he has to return home, for his birthday, and two after that if he decides to complete his agreement of three years in full. His choice, by then, as a man of Athens, to make, and he knows well enough what he will say.

The length of his torso is measured, down to his navel, his shoulders. He tries not to laugh as Hannibal takes the width of his jaw, too, claiming it is for the helmet. He feels ridiculous, giddy, and tries to avoid looking at Asherah, at Riot next to her, banging her tail against the floor next to Tawny.

Both dogs have officially taken up residence in Asherah’s room now, with Hannibal’s permission, having chosen her - most rightfully - as the alpha of their pack. Of this entire pack. She lavishes affection and attention on the creatures and they follow her around the house as she does her work, and to the market to carry her bags, now that she has taught them to carry two laced together over their backs.

“Will I be getting new boots?” Will asks, feels himself blush as Asherah sends him a shrewd look and Hannibal allows his eyes to slip to meet Will’s.

“Have you worn through yours already?” Hannibal responds, reaching around Will to loop the string around his head, settled across his brow. He considers his words and muses, then, with a slight smile, “Has it been so long?”

“It has.” Will lifts his chin as Hannibal holds the string against his neck, uncertain as to whether this measurement would be needed, but marking it anyway as Asherah jots down the notation.

“New boots then,” agrees the older man. “And you will have greaves as well. I would advise you stop growing much more than you already have, else you’ll be out of them in a month and they’ll be worth no more to you than scrap.”

“His chiton’s also run a bit short,” Asherah notes, not looking up from her parchment and pen, and Hannibal lets his eyes drift lower down the length of boy standing - arms still outstretched - before him.

“Shall I outfit you entirely then? Not only the cost of a full panoply, a shield, weapons of your own preference, but a new wardrobe, as well.” Hannibal snorts, and lets his fingers tease against the hem of Will’s tunic. “If I am paying for it, then I quite like it just where it is.”

“Society may not,” Asherah comments, a smile curling her tone even when it does not manifest on her face. Will grins, drops his hands to his sides to tug the tunic gently lower where Hannibal is happily determined to lift it.

“Perhaps I will find someone to sew you some rough pants,” Hannibal considers. "Create in you a warrior of the Neuri and Greece both.” He watches the boy lick his bottom lip into his mouth and he suddenly cares very little for measurements and the panoply, boots or anything else. He turns to Asherah, passing her the cord, thanking her for her time and help even as she shakes her head and walks past the man to take the measurement of Will from shoulder to knee - to just above - for his tunic, when Hannibal will not.

And then she leaves them both, clicking her tongue for her huge beasts to follow her, Will watching fondly as they nuzzle up against her legs and she deigns to pet them. He cannot think of a better person to care for his animals if he is to return home, join Hannibal in war, if something were to happen at all. He shakes his head. Too many stupid thoughts too late in a cool day.

“I will need a himation,” Will suggests, too, stepping down from the box he had climbed to make it easier for Hannibal to measure. "A heavy winter cloak, boots and sandals and chitons, many pairs.”

He grins at the older man’s expression and pushes up on his toes to press himself against Hannibal’s chest, hands together, resting elbow to wrist against the other’s heartbeat. His tunic, now, rides higher up his thighs where Hannibal can see down his back, and Will bites his lip, watching him.

“I will be an entirely spoiled boy,” he murmurs.

"Are you not already?" Hannibal asks, feigning surprise. "Something that must be remedied straight away then, while you are still mine to spoil."

The irony of their words - that these gifts are a parting of ways, a reward for time well-served in study - is not lost to Hannibal. It is the last time he will be treated as a boy, gifted and praised and clad in splendor, before the expectations of manhood become his burden to wear instead. But for now he is here, and he is warm and he is lovely and he is Hannibal's own.

"Hannibal," Will muses, head tilting aside as the older man tastes the soft curve of his neck, strong hands dragging his chiton high enough to bare him. "I read something, in the histories -"

"I am already surprised and impressed," teases Hannibal, and Will grins.

"I read that other peoples very much like your own hold importance to the sharing of gifts."

"True for mine as well," Hannibal agrees. “A gift should always be repaid with a gift, whether for good or for ill.” His mind is hardly on such things now, however, hardly directed towards anything but the warmth of Will’s backside where it curves to meet his thighs, soft skin that flushes hot beneath the broad hands that cover it and pull Will closer still against him. He lifts Will easily, smiling between their mouths as little kisses are shared and lean legs snare around his hips. A few steps, and an easy turn, and Hannibal falls back against his bed, heavy, with his boy astride him.

He skims his palms down Will’s spread legs, across his calves and then high again to curl his fingers against Will’s inner thighs. “Pants, then, and chitons. Warmth enough for winter, and shoes to keep you from trodding in the mess your dogs leave everywhere. Armor and weaponry that - if the gods favor us - will never know use beyond your training.” Will’s hands frame Hannibal’s face as he leans low to kiss him, and the older man reaches to grip the boy’s small braid now, worn so much as Hannibal’s own. “Whatever you wish, while you are yet mine to spoil.”

Will smiles, lets his eyes close as he kisses Hannibal again, heart beating quickly and cheeks flushing in anticipation of this. He thinks how he could ask, could speak of it without losing his words, without embarrassing himself, or Hannibal. He remembers that if he does not think a thing shameful, it will not be.

"While you spoil me, I must find a way to do the same," he muses, grinning and lifting his arms so his tunic can be pulled over his head and tossed aside, a hum from Hannibal as he takes his boy in - a man, now, in all but status, beautifully flushed, face smooth and clean of hair and kept that way, for just a little longer - "A gift returned, while you are yet mine to spoil."

He is coy, shifting into Hannibal’s touches and at once away from them, enough to feel the older man’s fingers brush his skin but not press to it, for his palms to splay over his backside and squeeze, but not spread him. Will watches, fascinated, as Hannibal swallows, considers him with his braid, his darkened eyes, the blush over Will’s nose that spreads down his cheeks and neck and to his chest.

"You spoil me daily, peacemaker," Hannibal tells him, and while the words are in jest, they are also entirely serious, a softness, a deep fondness there. Will bites his lip hard and releases it before drawing his own hands - still relatively little - over Hannibal’s chest, the marks and scars there, the peaked nipples that respond to Will’s gentle teasing as his own do when Hannibal torments them with the rough pad of his thumb, the rough heat of his tongue.

He bends his body entirely over Hannibal’s, sliding his hands up over the other’s arms to direct his hands, one up Will’s back to his hair, smiling when Hannibal toys with the braid again, and one... lower, further back, splaying Hannibal's fingers with his own as Will spreads his thighs around him. He draws Hannibal’s fingers over the cleft of his bottom, over the hole that he presses Hannibal's fingers to in suggestion and arches his back to push against them harder.

“Sweet boy,” Hannibal purrs against Will’s mouth, doing no more yet than circling the tight ring of muscle beneath his fingertips, stroking the soft skin there again and again.

He wants this, has wanted this, but has rarely let himself even imagine it. Late nights earlier on, when Will slept apart from him, he would envision how it might feel and stroked himself to satisfaction at the thought of it, but never would he suggest it himself. There is a shame in this, to be taken in such a way, a pain inherent in such an act beyond that, though Hannibal has considered it even in his thoughts with nothing less than utter gratitude.

He lifts his eyes to the boy above him and arching against him, Hannibal presses, just to feel Will’s opening allow him the barest entrance, and this already is enough to fuel a lifetime of late-night imaginings. “You needn’t,” Hannibal murmurs, though the darkness of his gaze and the shortness of his breath betrays his want for it. “I have not asked this of you. I would not.”

Will smiles, allows another little sound to click through his throat as he rocks back against Hannibal’s hand again. He is nervous, the tension soon to turn to trembling in his thighs, but he wants, he _wants_. 

"One does not ask for gifts," Will reminds him, "or they are not gifts at all." A swallow and Will lets Hannibal's wrist go to set his own hands to the bed, kisses against Hannibal’s rough stubbled cheek, his jaw, his neck as the gentle touching continues, sending a delicious shiver through the boy. "I have also read," he whispers, words rougher, "that it is extremely bad luck to reject a gift willingly given." Will nuzzles against the older man, assuring him, needing him even as trembling finally breaks through his skin and a blush further heats it. "Let me spoil you," he sighs.

Hannibal moans low, tilting his head aside to let Will drag his lips against his neck, down onto the tattooed stag that curls across his shoulder, following its scars with his tongue and pulling a shiver through the older man who has, as ever, relinquished himself entirely to his boy’s demands.

“Let us not tempt luck, then,” Hannibal answers with a huffed laugh. He stills his teasing for now, fingernails tracing lines across Will’s back, his ribs, until he sets his fingers against Will’s mouth, and his own lips part when Will’s do to take Hannibal’s finger against his tongue. The feel of his mouth is familiar as his own now, the sight of Will’s lips curving damp and flushed around him, the way his tongue rolls to suck Hannibal’s finger deeper into his mouth.

Well-slicked, Hannibal pulls his finger free with a grin, catching Will’s lips with his own instead as he returns his hand to Will’s backside, and rubs wet against him. Another shiver curls through Will, lip held between his teeth, and Hannibal watches in dark-eyed wonder as he presses slowly into him.

It is an odd sensation but far from unpleasant, and Will adjusts to spread a little further for Hannibal, to feel him press deeper and pull free again. He thinks of the advice, of Berenike’s insistence that the pain would be significant and entirely worth the satisfaction at the end. He thinks of her reminder to use oil. A lot of oil.

Will laughs against Hannibal’s skin, bites his lip and presses his forehead to the center of Hannibal’s chest. He thinks of the boys at the agora, their words so loftily tossed, so bravely discussed. He wonders how many had allowed it, this, how many had been able to set pride aside for the pleasure of giving themselves to another.

In truth, he doesn't care. What the boys do, what they don't, he is here, now, feeling his breathing pick up as Hannibal turns his wrist a little and moves his finger within him. He can feel himself grow hard between his legs in anticipation for more, for Hannibal to enter him entirely, take him as he does between Will’s thighs.

"Oil," he begs quietly, lifting his eyes to see Hannibal and smile at him, "that I will get if you release me for just a moment again."

Hannibal can do no more than nod, swallowing hard as he slips his finger free again and lets Will move off from him. All sinuous motion, so far removed from the awkward boy who didn’t know of what his body is capable, Will slips his leg from over Hannibal and stretching stands to lift his arms above his head, a deliberate display that Hannibal partakes in as completely as it’s offered. An entirely new loveliness to savor, lean muscle and hard angles, it feels diminishing to consider him still a boy. Will is, as much as Hannibal, a man now and all the more beautiful for it.

“Go,” Hannibal tells him, grinning where he too stretches, head tilted to watch Will as he goes, bare and shameless, towards the kitchen.

He feels like a boy himself, now, recalling distantly how he once felt when at the behest of his comrades he lay between a woman’s legs for the first time, uncertain what to do with his hands or where to set his legs or how to move any other part of himself beyond youthful animal drive. All anticipation and uncertainty, a welcome sensation for one who has become so certain in all other things.

When Will returns, a small lekythos of oil dangling from his finger, he is still hard and Hannibal understands with a profound clarity why the Greeks are so intent on sculpting athletes and youth. He sighs, unable to withhold the appreciative sound, and skims a hand along his length as Will kneels onto the bed again.

“How should I best enjoy this gift?” Hannibal asks Will, entirely in his sway for however he prefers him.

Will considers, setting the oil to the bed, hand still supporting it as he lets himself look at Hannibal, see him. A man wanting this, in awe of the fact that he has it, not a barbarian taking what he wants. And he could have, Will thinks, as others have of their eromenoi, taken what he wished and left the boy to grow resentful of him. Hating no one more than his lover.

No.

Hannibal would not have taken, could not have. As much a warrior as the man is, he is not cruel, he does not conquer to abuse, to hurt.

Perhaps it is why Will wants him to have this gift, wants to allow him this, and anything else. A giving of himself, satisfaction in the other’s pleasure if not his own. Will tilts his head, bites his lip.

"On your knees," he decides. “Behind me."

Anything, anything Will wishes, anything he desires - spoiled, through and through, and yet it’s entirely Hannibal who feels privileged to do so. He moves the lekythos beside the bed and moves to his knees, allowing Will the space needed to stretch himself along the mattress. Laying flat across his belly, he stretches, up onto his hands, shifts his weight back onto his knees and folds his arms beneath his cheek to watch Hannibal over his shoulder, a feline gesture that seems serene enough that only the gentle trembling of his thighs betrays his nervousness.

Hannibal spreads his hands across them to ease away his worry, to settle his excitement, pressing his palms upward over Will’s ass to spread him gently and pull his tongue slow across Will’s opening. Kissing warm against it, Hannibal sucks the soft skin there, humming when Will laughs into his arms and coils forward, presses back again for more, and Hannibal is entirely too pleased to indulge him in this when Will would offer up his entirety in exchange.

He reaches, breath cool where his mouth was pressed against spit-slick skin, and dips his fingers into the vessel of olive oil, slippery and fragrant. Fingertips skim over Will’s opening again, as patient in this as Hannibal has always been with Will in all things, pressing slow circles until finally he enters again. A shudder tugs a low sound from deep in the older man’s chest as his finger slides easily inside, now, and yet despite how fiercely his own desire snarls in his belly, he is attentive. He is aware. He listens, for any sounds of discomfort that would stop his touch immediately.

But none come from Will, just gentle shivers, and sighs as Hannibal spreads the oil within him, reaches back for more to do it again. The sensation is nicer, now, fingers slippery against him and Will bites his lip as he blushes darker. It feels good. It feels strange but good, undeniably, and knowing how much Hannibal wants this, how much he will do, how patient he will be… Will is prepared for an entire night of this so long as they both find pleasure in it.

Another finger and Will tenses, not in pain but in surprise. Skin just as slick, slide just as easy, and Will feels more full, now, comfortably so, as Hannibal pushes his fingers into and out of him, spreads them to stretch Will further and pulls another shuddering groan from him. He had never anticipated how sensitive he would be here, how good anything at all could feel there, and yet he arches back, shifts his knees wider, shivers and coils and turns.

It’s when Hannibal presses the third finger in, careful, slow, that Will realizes that he no longer has any fear of the pain at all, just a fear that this will not be what Hannibal expects, that he will be clumsy or awkward and do something wrong, but the man seeks, now, and Will finds his voice leaving him in high little moans bitten into the sheets.

“I’ve -” Will laughs, buries his face against the blankets. “I’ve changed my mind, I -” A groan, soft, as Hannibal removes his fingers and Will wriggles around to lie on his back and remedy the worry and misunderstanding before it can weigh on Hannibal’s features.

“I want to see you,” Will says, smiling, setting his knees wide this way, instead, heels against the bed and lip between his teeth before he reaches for Hannibal, to bring him closer and kiss him.

Heavy between Will’s legs, Hannibal lies low over him and rests his unoiled hand against Will’s cheek, relishing the movement of his mouth as they kiss, lips sliding smoothly together, catching on teeth, sucked and bitten softly in mutual want for this. His fingers find their way between Will’s legs again, slid into him easily now, no strain but a promising pressure that squeezes in response to his touch and draws a sigh from him.

“You’ll tell me to stop if I should,” Hannibal murmurs, not a request but an insistence. “If it hurts, if you simply wish it it to stop -”

“Don’t,” laughs Will, ducking his head beneath Hannibal’s chin to kiss his throat, spreading his lips across the older man’s shoulder. “Don’t stop.”

Though it’s Will who lays spread, it’s Hannibal who worries. He recalls, pleasure and concern mingled, how Berenike regarded him after feeling beneath his tunic, and the logistics that now present themselves before him are worth considering. But despite this, uncertain how well it will work - if it will at all - he will not, as Will said, tempt luck by questioning a gift offered, Hannibal withdraws his fingers to oil them again, sitting back on his heels as he strokes himself slick.

Will watches, the thrum of nerves beneath his skin is pleasing and welcome, and he shifts more, thighs spreading where they usually press tight together, knees pink from where he had rested them against the bed. He feels open, vulnerable, air cooling against the oil on his skin, muscles twitching as he waits, swallows, worries, needs this.

Will parts his lips when Hannibal leans near, breathing him in and keeping his eyes open despite how close they are, how he can see little more than shadows and light against Hannibal’s face. This is a trust, a gift, given where Will had never expected to, where he knows Hannibal had never thought he would. Will makes a sound as Hannibal presses against him, not yet a breach but already making Will shiver.

When Hannibal does start to push in, Will holds his breath.

The stretch immediately grows uncomfortable, not painful but entirely unusual, not enjoyable, though Will can’t immediately say he wishes for it to end. He swallows, thick, keeps his eyes open but turned away, baring his neck and smiling when Hannibal presses against it with soft lips and a gentle brush of his nose.

Will’s toes curl, relax, and his breathing grows heavier, the further Hannibal enters him. He twists, just a little, pulls a noise from the man above him and only then realizes how this must feel for Hannibal, how entirely exquisite and good it must be for him. So Will does it again.

A coarse swear is bitten off, rough-voiced, as Will shifts beneath - around - Hannibal and he stills, forcing his eyes to remain open, pulse beating tight in his throat, to take in the sight of the younger man beneath him. There is tension, strain, in the corners of his eyes, in the pull of his lips and so Hannibal remains as he is. In truth, if he didn’t move again, if he were no deeper than he is, it would be enough already. Will’s body is wonderfully tight around him, hot and slick, and Hannibal is sure that in his many times between the legs of another, none has ever felt so exceptional, and certainly none as rewarding.

None have meant as much as Will, and Hannibal cannot imagine how anyone else ever might.

He steals Will’s gentle gasp as he leans low, pressing inward again, aching slow and patient, waiting until Will returns his kiss before moving again. Little by little, time to know each other in this way as unhurried as they have been learning each other in every other way.

“Sweet Will,” Hannibal whispers against his cheek, turning his head aside to kiss along his jaw, to mark his pulse and taste his heart’s racing. He shudders roughly as Will squirms to adjust himself, spreading his legs wider, tightening them, sinking one over Hannibal’s hip.

The stretch hurts, more and more, and at the same time falls to numbness just as quickly; Will can feel his pulse against every point of his skin that Hannibal touches, between his legs, against his throat over his wrists and heart and stomach and -

“Oh,” he bites his lip, releases it, flushed and trembling as he watches Hannibal, coaxes him closer until he is entirely within him, legs pressing to the backs of Will’s thighs as they both catch their breath, try to. Will slips his legs to rest his feet against the insides of Hannibal’s calves. He has never felt so connected before, to anyone else, and he lifts Hannibal’s face to kiss him again, deep and long and moaning into it before Hannibal pulls back to breathe.

Will’s hands are everywhere, over Hannibal’s back and up over his shoulders, scrabbling against muscle and pressing to skin, tugging his braid loose to curl his fingers in Hannibal’s hair and tilt his head to kiss his throat.

“Move,” he whispers, grinning, ducking his head. “Slowly, I want to see -”

No Greek finds its way to Hannibal’s voice now, just the guttural rumble of Neuri - affirmations, brusque and cut short in his throat, before he shows his fondness rather than trying to speak it. Hungry kisses sucked against Will’s neck, lingering open-mouthed against his cheek as Hannibal tilts his hips back, and slowly presses in again. A bare movement, but even in its slightness enough to pull a laughing gasp from Will, fingers tightening sharp into Hannibal’s back.

A little more the next time, again, again, withdrawing slowly but further, to rock himself back in again. Each movement from Will beneath him resonates through his body, through Hannibal’s own, single words finding their way through his roughened breathing - _beautiful_ , _yes_ , _please_. He lifts a hand to curl over Will’s hair, grasping him by the braid to bend Will a little further, releasing him to feel the trembling tension of his body down hairless chest and soft belly and finally between his legs, to take him in hand.

He fights every part of himself that would as soon finish now as he would rather it last the whole night through, wrist turning to stroke Will back to hardness, a steady rhythm met now between their hips. The pull against Will’s body leaves the older man as breathless as the delightful tightness when he pushes into him again, a yielding of bodies each to the other, joined together as entirely as they have been, already, for so long. In mind. In heart. Barriers broken down with patience and forgiveness, understanding and a willingness to wait.

And it’s all the sweeter for that, far more now than simply erastes and eromenos.

Wil curses, turns his head and feels his hair pull free of the tether that holds his braid, feels some curls bend up against his face, unruly and untamable from being warmed by the sun, salted in the sea and battered by the wind. The sound he makes after is one of deep pleasure, pulled from his chest as he presses one hand between them against Hannibal’s, over his heart and curling his fingers together before letting them part and splay.

Body tensing and relaxing as Hannibal touches him, Will doesn’t hold his voice, he arches back and lets his eyes fall closed and _moans_ , enough that it will be heard through the door, through the walls, as his other hand comes up to tug his own hair for the sensation of it. It feels good, it feels incredibly, indescribably good.

“Will never let you sate yourself between my thighs again if we can have this,” Will groans, Neuri tangled and slick as their bodies are, sounds drawling and drawing long, sweet little moans that are almost mewls with Will’s enjoyment, his encouragement that Hannibal thrust against him faster, stroke him in time, then just out of it until Will is flushed red and squirming beneath him, leaking clear against Hannibal’s fist.

“Any time you wish it,” Hannibal promises him, taking Will at his own pace now, curling his fingers tighter in matching rhythm. “Anything you wish, Will, anything you need is yours.”

His lips curl across his teeth as he presses particularly deep, enough that Will’s sounds are for a moment utterly silenced, lips gasping quiet, before he sighs out hard against Hannibal’s shoulder. He lowers himself across Will, freeing his other hand from where it pressed to the sheets to rock against the younger man beneath him, to curl his fingers in Will’s hair and pull in place of his own hand, gently, only a tug, to see his cheeks and lips darken in delight.

“No one but you,” murmurs Hannibal against Will’s mouth, nuzzling fiercely against him. “I have had no one but you since first I dragged you here from the city, unhappy and unwilling. Hoping that at least you might come to tolerate me, hoping at best - this, Will, all of this,” he sighs harshly, Neuri thick on his tongue. “All of you.”

He cannot imagine another who would feel so entirely perfect wrapped around him. He cannot imagine another who would bring him so much pleasure to see in the morning, with whom he might eat and tend the animals and spar and learn. He cannot imagine - has never imagined - that another would not only accept him, as he is, but embrace it.

“I love all of you,” Hannibal swears.

Will shudders, entirely overcome by the words, the sensations, everything. He makes a weak little noise, like a sob, bites his lip as he arches up, hooks his legs over Hannibal’s hips and levers himself higher, to meet every push of Hannibal’s body into his own, and there finds something that makes him see stars.

Grasping hands and thick swallows and Will pulls Hannibal closer to kiss him, sloppy things, weak things, barely there but meant enough things. He had not wanted to come here, had wanted to read for the rest of his life, be a man of society who would be respected and seen, who would attend gatherings and be heard. He had wanted nothing to do with war, nothing to do with farms or foreigners, he had wanted none of it.

Yet now, arching hard beneath Hannibal, he cannot imagine any other life for himself than to be so cared for and wanted, respected because he had earned it, worked at it, sweated and bled and cried for it. He cannot imagine the quiet of the libraries when he can have the heavy breathing of the man beside him, the clamoring of the hounds in the long grass beside him.

“Hannibal please,” he sighs, scrabbling back behind himself to open himself further, head ducked and lips parted to watch them pressed together, to watch as Hannibal sets his wide hands over his hips and holds Will closer, starts to push harder, to drive Will entirely to incoherence when all he wants to say is that he loves him too.

“I -”

That he will return to his home, as custom, on his birthday, but that he will not stay there.

“Gods, Hannibal, Han-”

That he will not return to his home once the three years have ended, three years are only a speck in the life he can share with this man, here.

“Please!”

Anything.

Hannibal loosens his grip enough to feel Will’s body shudder tight in release, his own in kind, each still and suspended outside of themselves, inside each other, intertwined inseparable whatever comes. Eyes open and lips parted, lost in the moment where their breath holds and their hearts nearly cease to beat, until in a dizzying rush it all returns and Hannibal bows his head against Will’s and laughter, shaking soft between them, takes the place of oaths and panting breaths.

Gentle movements, like ships moved by the waves against the shore, rock their bodies together, slower each time, until they still and lay heavy, sweat-damp and slick with oil and release, and Hannibal seeks even past the numbness in his lips to find Will’s mouth with his own. Little kisses, one after another after another, until even this is too much and Hannibal tilts his hips back enough to slide free of Will and lay alongside him, gathering Will into his arms with his back against Hannibal’s chest.

“Thank you,” he murmurs against Will’s shoulder. Again, against the back of his neck. Again, into his hair where Hannibal breathes him in and sighs long relief, surrounding the younger man to hold him as close as he can.

Will feels the words echoed in his ribs with every beat of Hannibal’s heart against him, and he knows it is far more than gratitude for a carnal pleasure, far more than thanking his boy for bending to his will. It is the gratitude Hannibal had aimed at the sky when the storm had woken them, the gratitude that had held Will close against him, muddy and bloody and little, before they had finally gone inside.

It is a depth of gratitude that Will cannot express in words, mind too exhausted, body too sore to be coherent at all.

So he lets his heart beat back, and knows Hannibal understands it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He waits a while, the quiet of the stable almost enchanting, magical, quiet that he worries about breaking, and then he asks, very carefully, “Hannibal, how is it possible?”
> 
> The foal grows whiter as it grows cleaner, with a little pink nose and gently pink-rimmed eyes. Its mother, however, has no white on her, a rich chestnut with a lighter mane. Will considers the other horses, any of the stallions that could have fathered this little one, and none of them have enough white to warrant.
> 
> “The gods,” Hannibal answers.

The wind is brutal when Hannibal rides back from the polis, but against his back to drive him on. His horse picks her path carefully, digging hooves into the earth when one gust or another threatens to unbalance her. 

Though Egypt keeps the Persians busy, there is only so much time they can buy. Hannibal’s trips to the polis have increased to every other day, and he would stay, in the rooms provided, drink the wine, make merry as most men do, if it weren’t for the farm, for the thought of leaving Will there longer than he must.

The youth has grown restless in his training, angry at every mistake and quieted only when sparring brings him to utter exhaustion. Hannibal has observed him practicing with the bow when the wind is less biting, with the axes when it does not let up. He is growing better with the sword, practices with his shield. In truth, Will is beautiful to behold in every activity, but he is exquisite when he fights, now, despite his own displeasure at his skill.

Hannibal allows a slave to take his horse when he arrives, all too happy to rest, pull Will against him and breathe in his warm smell, allow his hands to draw shivers from him as he touches him with cold fingers. The dogs swarm him when he enters, all but three, and two of them he is certain are with their rightful owner, who shouts her greeting from the kitchen.

But Will does not greet him, and Hannibal finds himself dismayed. Though perhaps he has gone riding, to the cliffs to let his horse run her fill before allowing her to pick her way back. Perhaps he is busy elsewhere - Hannibal had not made it clear if he would be home in the evening or the next morning. Regardless, he finds himself only partially pleased to see the dogs, greeting them with quiet words and smiles before moving to his chambers.

Upon the bed, tail slapping the sheets, lies Yelp, and Hannibal can’t help but laugh.

“Enormous, idiotic creature, you jump from it, jump.” The dog seems far from interested in how to get off the bed now that Hannibal is here to either do it for him or to fall upon him instead. And Hannibal would, if not for the folded parchment upon his pillow, that he opens carefully, smiles at.

In neat hand, unlike Will’s initial attempts with Neuri, it reads only _come to the stables_.

Hannibal sighs, setting the letter aside to grasp the enormous wriggling dog around lanky legs. “Come then, stupid dog,” he mutters fondly, lifting Yelp to the floor since he has apparently forgotten how to reach it himself, despite being taller than the bed itself. He is battered by Yelp’s tail before, wheezing his pleasure, the dog lopes clumsy from the room and down the hall, and Hannibal follows after.

He stretches, aching from the long ride, and toes off his sandals to leave them by the back door. One is, of course, immediately carried off by Yelp and Hannibal hums displeasure before carrying on barefoot to the stables. It is still light outside, several hours more of it before night, and Hannibal whistles sharp to the horses a distance off in the paddock. They stop their grazing and stand as if at attention, ears pricked forward towards him, and one returns a shrill whinny that pulls a grin from Hannibal as he continues past.

It is a far less pleasant sound that greets him, a low and desperate noise. Pain, he knows the feel of it regardless of species, but this, a horse, and it quickens his step to the doors of the stable. A fleeing barncat tangles in his legs and he hisses a curse at it as it races away.

Within, he finds one of the horses, the youngest before the first foals, belly round with one of her own, on her side, panting, sounds of pain pulled from her with almost every breath. Will and a slave sit at her side, the young man doing nothing more than soothing the creature with gentle words and soft hands. He looks up when Hannibal comes in, smiles at him.

“I was worried you’d miss it, as I had once!” He tells Hannibal, but he doesn’t get up to greet him, turning back to the creature in pain when she makes another of those agonizing sounds that seem to fill the entire room, their bones beyond even that. “She came out of the wind first,” Will explains, when he can, “I heard her cry a few moments later, I didn’t know what to do beyond -” he gestures. It’s not much. But he has made the horse comfortable, and they are out of the wind.

Hannibal swears beneath his breath, half curse and half prayer, relieved and grateful that the sight which greets him is not one of injury. It is still its own kind of agony, a suffering that Hannibal has seen before enough times but cannot imagine himself. He steps nearer, and asks his slave to bring him his knife from the bedroom, and the boy is glad to have something to do. Will is stroked, rough hands in soft curls, as Hannibal crouches beside him.

“How long?” Hannibal asks, and Will shakes his head.

“She just laid down.”

Hannibal spreads a hand along her heaving side as she goes quiet but for rough snorting breaths, and no sooner does he stroke across the wild undulations of her body than water, or something very like it, spills copious across the fresh straw that Will laid across the floor.

“I’ve good timing today,” muses Hannibal. Though calm in movement there is an excitement to him, worry and delight in equal parts, and he moves to gently clear her tail aside.

It takes time, still, though not nearly as much as her hours of nervous preparation. Hannibal’s slave returns, holding the knife and standing aside to wait for the general to ask for it, just as Hannibal begins to whisper to the nervous horse in rough Neuri. Prayers, Will knows, and though the meanings have not been explained to him, the warm rumble of Hannibal’s voice is a comfort even still.

Little hooves first, wrapped in a strange blue caul, that Hannibal takes carefully into hand to help guide. He does no more than that, not yet, not unless he needs to, and the man laughs with all the wild pleasure of a startled new father as a little nose presents itself next, somehow too large and impossibly small all at once.

And then everything stops. At least, the horse seems to settle and… the little foal stays where it is. Will blinks, shocked enough by the sheer size of the animal coming out of another, the smell of it all, the volume of… everything. He makes a face, turns to Hannibal, who seems in no rush to pull the foal free, in no rush to do anything at all but wait, stroke the house’s hindquarters and murmur words of praise as she snorts and lays against the ground.

Will shivers, continues to draw warm fingers over the horse’s sweaty neck as her eyes roll but she stays still, resting, apparently, despite this being - to Will, at least - a rather important thing to simply get over and done with.

“Is she alright?” Will asks quietly, cautious, swallowing before shifting his position enough to sit nearer Hannibal, wincing at the mess the man is kneeling in. “Hannibal, why did she stop?”

The caul has been split by tiny hooves - no need for the knife, then, still gripped by Hannibal’s slave - and Hannibal peels the membrane back from the little horse’s face, careful, so entirely careful. His breath catches, as he holds the little head in his hands and feels exhausted, tiny puffs of air against his wet skin.

White. All of the little foal so far, from nose to shoulders, that has worked free of its mother, is white.

Hannibal ducks his head and utters a fervent prayer, bowed as if in worship over the baby horse. Mindless of the mess, mindless of the heat of it all, it takes him a moment more to hear Will’s words and he shakes his head, voice rough now, throat tight and eyes wide.

“They always do,” he finally says. “She’s tired, very tired, and the baby is breathing so they always stop here, to catch their own wind again.”

He swallows hard and reaches, taking Will’s hand despite a noise of surprise and bringing to rest beside his own, against the horse’s wet cheek, to let him feel the little huffs of breath. Will laughs, soft and startled, and Hannibal ducks his nose against the younger man’s temple, resting himself for a moment before he grins. “Shall we help?”

“Shall we -”

“Help her out a bit.”

Will blinks at Hannibal, eyes wide. “How -”

“You’ll have to assist,” he tells Will, and though the younger man shakes his head he follows Hannibal’s lead, grasping the wide-eyed little creature by the middle as Hannibal takes the hooves in hand. “Gently,” he says, “but steadily.”

And Hannibal pulls, not roughly, but a firm tug even as Will does little more than keep his hands on the creature. There is a grunt from the mother, hooves skidding along the hay, and in a rush, the baby and the thick caul that surrounded it slip free. Hannibal bites back the urge to whoop in delight as the baby sprawls its legs across the ground, trembling and wet.

His robes are already stained in the horse’s waters, slick all over with birth fluids, and Hannibal peels off his dark grey himation to briskly rub the foal as dry as he can. Quick and skillful fingers pluck membrane from the baby’s nose, from around its hooves, and after a moment the mother stands and the cord that joined them snaps neatly free.

The little colt is white. Entirely white but for the hay that sticks to him and the grey of his hooves and whatever afterbirth must be licked free by the mother that noses now at her baby, and Hannibal has never loved another creature so entirely as this.

Perhaps one other, he considers, laughing into his filthy hand with no mind for it at all.

Will watches, mesmerized by the little creature as it shivers, eyes wide and staring, legs like little matches folded beneath it in a way that cannot be comfortable. He watches the mare step near and lick her little foal clean, over the furry mane and tiny head, down its neck and over the ridge of its back.

He waits a while, the quiet of the stable almost enchanting, magical, quiet that he worries about breaking, and then he asks, very carefully, “Hannibal, how is it possible?”

The foal grows whiter as it grows cleaner, with a little pink nose and gently pink-rimmed eyes. Its mother, however, has no white on her, a rich chestnut with a lighter mane. Will considers the other horses, any of the stallions that could have fathered this little one, and none of them have enough white to warrant.

Hannibal sits back, slowly, lets his muscles unwind as he rests his back against a stall door. Tiny hooves splay across the ground, big head held up on unsteady neck, and Hannibal’s eyes soften as a nudge from the colt’s mother moves him to try and stand.

“The gods,” Hannibal answers, softly. “Svantevit, who faces in all directions at once. Who guides the movements of war because he sees past, present, and future.” He draws his knees up to rest his arms across, smiling a little, distant and warm when the little horse continues his best clumsy attempts to stand. “White horses are his own. When one was born, it went to the temple. Priests there cared for them. They said that Svantevit rides them, at night, and tells them of things to come.”

He shakes his head, brows lifting. “And so they watch the white horses and discern from their movements, their behaviors, how moves the fate of our tribe. How will turn the tides of war.” Hannibal studies the knobby knees and skinny legs, bristly mane and tiny twitching tail, all white as bleached linens, and when the colt finally stands unsteady, Hannibal ducks his face into his hand and laughs.

Will finds himself, now, watching Hannibal much more than the little colt. He looks giddy, genuinely, entirely giddy to see this little thing, white as snow, unsteady and trembling as his mother continues to clean him. Will has never seen Hannibal look so delighted as he does now, something beyond even sadness, joy, anything at all in his eyes that Will can only equate to seeing his beliefs, his entire world return to him.

Will can only imagine how that must feel, his soul tugs at him, pulls a smile against his lips.

“Seer of light?” Will asks finally, pulling Hannibal from his thoughts, furrowing his brow. “Svantevit, Svetovid. Light seer.”

Hannibal laughs again, a slightly more helpless sound, and watches Will with all the awe he had directed at the little foal.

“You are a wonder, peacemaker,” he murmurs, watches Will return his smile. Then Hannibal turns back to the little horse as he stands, tail twitching and legs unsteady, allows himself to be cleaned, still entirely bewildered. “A seer of light and of the world, that little foal will be.”

Will grins, sits up higher on his knees to look at the little creature. “Beli,” he says, tilting his head at the little foal who turns his head, almost enough to unsettle himself back to the ground. Will laughs, praising the creature softly, says the name again.

“‘Bright one’,” echoes Hannibal. “A more fitting name, I could not imagine.”

He rests his cheek against his hand, elbow propped against his knee as he watches them both. The little horse is fearless of Will’s careful hand, skimming down a bony back, and he has no reason to fear, new enough to the world that he can do little more than stand and try to find his balance. He picks careful steps through the hay, legs trembling but already sturdier than they were before, and finds his mother’s teat with a snort.

Hannibal swallows back the sound that pulls at him, from somewhere deep inside, a pleasure that defies words, defies explanation. How can one hope to describe how it feels to see a god made whole before their eyes? The sensation spills hot through him and every click of hooves and twitch of tail and tiny breath is an omen. A blessing. Life, spilled wild and messy across the floor. Standing on uncertain legs to find certain comfort. Watching in delight on folded knees. Everywhere, all around Hannibal, and he can do no more than take it in. Colt and mare and young man, as if the news from the polis were not enough -

He draws a breath, somehow, through the wonderful tightness in his chest, and says to Will, “Darius is dead.”

It takes a moment for the words to even register, for their meaning to come clear, and Will finds himself turning from the little horse, to Hannibal and back again, eyes wide, cheeks warm, before he stands, careful on the messy floor and bends to press a kiss between Beli’s twitching tiny ears as he sucks.

“An omen of goodness like no other,” he whispers, turning to take the few steps necessary to get to Hannibal and, ignoring the mess, sink down on his knees between the man’s legs and lean in to wrap his arms around him.

They are filthy, reeking and entirely alive, all of them, hearts beating and breaths drawn, and Will presses his face to Hannibal’s neck and laughs.

Hannibal draws Will against him, between his legs and held tight in his arms, cheek against his hair. He had, on the long ride home, imagined taking the younger man into his arms and into his bed straightaway, to spend the remaining hours of day joined breathless and needy inside of him. But in this moment, where he sits, it’s enough - a genuine peace, for themselves and for the world, for now.

He turns his eyes to Beli, who shakes his head hard enough that he nearly falls, watches his exhausted mother tend to him, feels Will shiver as the sun begins to sit and their sudden energy fades and finds them wet and filthy and chilled. Smiling, Hannibal kisses Will’s hair, tucks dirty fingers beneath his chin and brings their mouths to meet.

“Come,” he murmurs. “We will put them to a stall of their own. Ensure she has grain and clean straw. Tend to the mess here, and then wine and food to celebrate. And tomorrow we will make an offering in thanks.”

Will tilts his head to kiss him again, lingering and warm, before standing, offering his hand to Hannibal to help him stand.

The stables they clean quickly, the slave still holding the knife sent away to get more help, so the four of them can make quick work of it all. Hannibal removes one of the slotted dividing walls of the stalls towards the back, grants the mare and her little foal the space of two of them, fresh warm straw to rest on. The other horses, Will rounds up with his own, quick to mount her now, easy to move her through the field and herd the other creatures back for warmth and food. Few go reluctantly, and Will gives his girl a piece of apple in thanks for the help, scratching her forehead, rubbing her nose until she snorts and rubs against him as Hannibal’s mare does with him, in greeting, in parting, a scenting and reminder of a very gentle kind.

The dogs are herded as quickly back inside, Will’s to the kitchen for their meal, Hannibal’s to the kennels for theirs.

A household full of life and living things, breathing and co-existing together. Will marvels at it all, the strange way it all seems to work, together, in a strange and beautiful harmony.

They are, however, stopped at the door by Asherah, arms crossed. “No,” she says, and Hannibal - nearly too content, too tired by now even for dinner - sighs.

“What?”

“You’re not coming in like that.”

“It’s my house.”

“Oh?” She asks, brows lifting beneath her glossy dark hair, swept back from her face and twisted into a bun, stuck through with a long pin. “I must have forgotten that you were the one who cleaned it today. Please, then,” she smiles, extending a hand but remaining unmoved in the doorway.

“Asherah,” Hannibal intones, “it isn’t your -”

“It may as well be, and you’re not coming in until you wash. I’ll have wine brought to you, fresh clothes and even food if you simply can’t wait, but you are not tracking horse shit and afterbirth through the house.”

Hannibal blinks once, twice, staring at the woman less than half his size and only a couple of years older than Will, who holds Hannibal - a general, he reminds himself, a strategos of Attica - at a standstill. “The water,” he begins, but she tilts her head, and shakes it, nose wrinkling.

“Already heating. No excuses.”

“And if I come in anyway? To my own house,” laughs Hannibal.

“You would not be so short-sighted as that,” she promises, breaking into a grin as Hannibal does, in kind.

“Come, Will. A bath, I think, before dinner.” He turns to go, but not without a glance back to Asherah. “Wine.”

“Of course, general,” she replies genially. “Anything you require.”

They wash quickly so they can enjoy the calm of hot water and proximity for their bodies. Will rests against Hannibal, chest to chest, the man cupping water into his hands to pour over Will’s shoulders, keeping him warm. He tells Will of the meetings, of the news and decisions. He tells Will of the things he had seen riding to the polis, riding back, how the strong winds would bend the trees and force them to bow, but how they would always stand on their own again, once the threat of the wind passed.

Will tells Hannibal how he had run with the dogs against the wind, laughing as it tried to stop them, as some of the dogs turned tail and ran with it, leaving Will and just a few to run alone. He tells him of the little animals he has made, how he has gotten better in holding them together, how they look more and more like the creatures he makes them proxies of.

They drink the wine and heat their stomachs as well as their skin, voicing turning to warm laughter quickly, sloppy kisses and wandering hands. Will escapes quickly enough to fold a heavy sheet over himself, pass one to Hannibal, and return to the house - now allowed - to dry off and curl into bed. They find dinner in Hannibal’s chambers, miraculously not consumed by Yelp, until they see that all the dogs have been safely secured in Will’s chambers. Will goes, greets his hounds and rubs behind their ears, over their bellies, enough that they miss him when he closes the door again, when he returns, pale and naked, to Hannibal’s bed and straddles him before taking an offered olive between his teeth to chew.

Hannibal grunts, good-natured, as Will sits heavy atop him. He is still small, in comparison to the man beneath him, but unto himself he's grown tall and strong, yet youthful but not without the dawning signs of manhood. Fine hair along his thighs. A dusting of shadowy stubble along his jaw. A few curls of hair on his pale chest.

Hannibal loves them as much as every other part of him, and skims a hand across Will's cheek to draw him down into a kiss. Though there are yet lessons to learn and be taught, they are far less teacher and pupil now, erastes and eromenos. They feel, in most all ways, like equals, together by choice rather than obligation.

He does not delude himself so much as to forget Will's imminent birthday, however, and so instead revels in the now. Grinning, Hannibal takes the pit from Will's olive between his teeth and sets it aside, running his hands along the inside of Will's thighs, curling around to the back of him.

"It seems I find myself without an appetite," Hannibal muses.

"You seem quite ravenous to me," grins Will, raising up into his knees to allow Hannibal room to stroke against his backside. Hard-won confidence that now shows in the way he arches, the tilt of his head, the curl of his nails against Hannibal’s chest that stroke adoring over hair and skin and scars and tattoos.

"For you, always," answers Hannibal, grasping Will’s thighs to spread them further. “Although the purposes might have been better served had we made love there in the stable.”

“What purposes?” Will laughs, nose wrinkling at the thought of sprawling together across the damp straw. Hannibal hums as Will nuzzles into a kiss, and he runs his hands over the younger man’s back, up to wrap in the hair he wears long now, unbraided from his bath.

“Fertility,” murmurs the older man, eyes narrowed in amusement.

Will snorts, grins and shakes his head before kissing Hannibal properly, deeply, thighs still spread as Hannibal had spread them, hips up where Will had bent to press their lips together. He smiles as Hannibal runs fingers over the length of his hair, the length of his body. They are both tired, Will from his day and Hannibal from his ride, from watching a miracle happen and helping it breathe.

Will rocks back against Hannibal’s hand, encouraging, and rests his lips against Hannibal’s bearded cheek.

"I suppose virility will have to do," Will grins, before reaching over to the large plate of food they share, feeling Hannibal press up in anticipation of starting once Will gets the oil, but the boy merely takes a piece of bread to chew, laughing at Hannibal's expression before feeding some to him.

"You torment me."

"I adore you," Will counters, finally taking up the oil and sitting up and back to watch Hannibal as he slicks his own fingers with it, reaches back to spread himself.

Hannibal’s hands rest against Will’s legs, and he watches the arch of Will’s body as he leans forward, one hand on the bed, and the other on himself. He knows the moment the younger man touches himself, from the color that blooms across his cheeks, from the soft sound that parts his lips, the way his pupils widen and his eyes hood in pleasure.

He can’t help but think of the first time he saw Will in the baths, then just a stroppy, prideful boy, bent onto all fours in the tub beside his own. Hannibal had thought him beautiful then, from a distance, but entirely insufferable in his own baseless egotism. He is even more beautiful now, with pride earned through work and humility, self-assured and experienced. The early months feel wasted, now that their parting is so near, and yet Hannibal cannot imagine that either would have relented to the other without those trials.

This nearness was hard-won, and entirely a battle worth fighting.

He palms between Will’s legs to feel the weight of the younger man’s cock growing heavy against his hand. Rough fingertips trace the throbbing veins beneath soft skin, and grasp to slip it back and allow him to touch instead the flushed head, swollen and scarlet with want already. For this, for Hannibal, for what they share with no one else, at least for now.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He stands.
> 
> Words mean little when eyes speak louder.
> 
> “Have I not earned them?” Will asks, still working the pins into his own tunic as he comes through to the main room, after Hannibal. “Have I not earned the right to mark my skin with my achievements when each and all are mine to claim?”

Will watches as Hannibal dresses in the morning, standing to stretch first, arms up above his head with a groan as muscles bunch in his back and shoulders, distorting some of the creatures drawn there, allowing them to stretch as well. Will considers, head tilted and eyes narrowed, as he himself remains sprawled naked in bed, how well he knows the grey ash and ink, now, how he knows it by touch and taste both.

He knows every story and every meaning.

Knows as well as Hannibal can remember when he had gotten them, what he had earned them for, these beautiful things grown from loss and pain and earned with blood and tears.

He thinks of the two weeks they have before Will comes of age, before he must return home to his father and make his choice regarding completing his apprenticeship. Two weeks have never seemed so small a timeframe. 

“Teach me something new, today,” Will asks him, watches Hannibal turn to raise an eyebrow as he does up his tunic, allows his eyes to run over Will’s prone form.

“What would you have me teach, peacemaker?”

Will smiles, rests his head back against the pillows, works his throat in a swallow.

“Teach me of ash and blood, and how one earns them both.”

Hannibal pins together his chiton at his shoulder, hands down across the smooth, soft fabric that falls loose against his frame and settles just above his knees. He does not put up the other shoulder today, no need when there are no guests planned who might see his marks and question them.

None but the younger man, anyway, who watches him with his lip held between his teeth.

“You have heard their stories,” Hannibal reminds him. “All of them, again and again.” He glances down at his own skin, fingers brushing across the raised lines of the bird over his heart. “Family, rites of passage, memory and accomplishment,” he murmurs. “For a first hunt, a first kill. To remember one who has passed, or one newly born.” He lifts his eyes to watch Will’s hand mirror the motion across his own bare chest. “You know this all, already,” he tells the younger man. “You asked me to teach you something new.”

Will raises his eyes to Hannibal carefully again and takes him in, entirely as he is, tall and strong, the appearance of a barbaric and frightening man when Will has known him to be anything but, to him, to his slaves, to the animals he keeps. It occurs to Will, not for the first time, that Hannibal had been given a life he was good at, but one he did not enjoy; war and fighting, training and commanding, he had earned his status and his name, but he was not a soldier in his soul. His soul sung for the early mornings watching Beli stagger to little feet and trot to his mother, his soul sang for the stupid silent dog that beat his legs with his enormous tail. His soul sang for Will and the ocean, for his farm and the fields around it.

“Teach me how they feel,” Will tells him, sitting up, crawling to the edge of the bed to sit there, legs sprawled and hands down against the mattress to balance himself. “Teach me the sting of the blade and the throb after, as the ash seeps to my blood and through it, lingers as a reminder on my skin, on me.”

“Ah,” comes Hannibal’s only response for a moment, surprised to speechlessness by the younger man’s request. He wants to tell him that he loves him, to grasp him and pull him near and try to form in words what it means that Will has accepted - embraced - Hannibal and his history as if it were his own. He wants to tell him how it feels to come alive again with memories of the past that have been long silenced and shuttered.

He wants to not imagine Will leaving, two weeks hence, back to his own world.

He wants to not be alone, embers burning into ash again when he goes.

But what one wants is not, always or even often, what one can have, and Hannibal makes a soft sound of disapproval. “Those marks are permanent,” he tells Will, thumb stroking beneath his eye as he cups Will’s cheek in his hand. “And they would signify you, to any who saw them, as an _other_. It is not your custom, it is not the way of your people, and I would not allow you to burden yourself so.” Hannibal brushes a kiss across Will’s brow, fingers coming to rest beneath his chin before he turns to go. “Come. Breakfast will be ready.”

Will’s brows furrow in confusion, displeasure as he watches Hannibal go. His words are entirely at odds with what his eyes had said, how he had looked on Will with such adoration, pride, how he had said yes as surely as his words had denied it. Will wonders why, after years together, he would lie so, he wonders why he would make their last few weeks those of parting, not enjoyment together.

Will wonders, for one terrifying, cold moment, if Hannibal is relieved to be done with him.

Then the moment passes. 

He stands.

Words mean little when eyes speak louder.

“Have I not earned them?” Will asks, still working the pins into his own tunic as he comes through to the main room, after Hannibal. “Have I not earned the right to mark my skin with my achievements when each and all are mine to claim?”

He waits for another denial, another deep sigh to dismiss a child in his persistence, his petulance, and moves to stand before Hannibal with narrowed eyes and straight shoulders.

“I am born Greek, but my soul is Neuri. I have felt my breath taken by the storm, I have felt my hands grow claws and my eyes turn yellow when I howled. You cannot tell me I have not.” Will swallows, tilts his head, hair almost long enough to all be pulled into his braid, now, just bare curls around his face that escape and hang there, dark and beautiful.

“It is my right to claim the marks,” Will says again, softer, making Hannibal understand. “To wear them, permanent, against my skin with pride. I am asking you to teach me.”

Hannibal listens, hears his eromenos’ words and the fire that burns in them. He is rash, Hannibal knows, in his youth perhaps cannot understand how it feels to be looked askance at by every person one encounters. To be treated with fear, with prying curiosity, to be an oddity at best and a barbarian at worst, no matter if one is simply at the baths or in the agora. Hannibal covers them, when he is around others, not in shame but in exhaustion, countless years of trying to have conversations with those whose eyes are always elsewhere in distraction.

It is tedious. It is tiresome. It is unfair in the judgments that others make of him, immediately, on sight.

And, Hannibal knows despite his own discord, that he would take them all again, if he could.

He draws a breath, and sighs. “And if I will not?”

“Then I will make them myself,” Will answers.

As Hannibal himself, has, since his people were lost to him. The older man’s eyes move between Will’s own, brilliant blue and staunchly certain, and he leans close to tilt Will’s chin again, and kiss his brow.

“I will not have you fainting unconscious into the fire, some beast half-carved into your skin,” Hannibal murmurs.

Will’s cheeks flush with a joy he cannot begin to describe and he instead just steps closer to press himself against Hannibal properly, an unspoken gratitude, so strong it makes him mute. When he pulls away he goes to retrieve the pitcher for fresh milk, and pours it for them both when he returns.

The wind has hardly lessened but it is not as cruel as it had been, all horses outside now, bar the mare and her foal, who remain in the stables where the little thing happily stumbles back and forth from his mother to the door. Will watches, through the window, as other horses huddle close, beneath the trees or near each other, sharing warmth and taking weight when necessary. His own filly runs against the wind until she tires, then stands, contented, grazing where the elements had stopped her.

Will shakes his head, laughs, finishes his cup of milk and considers the things he has earned, the things that are entirely his, now, with time and patience and pain.

He has earned his hounds, every single one of the seven. He has earned his horse, her trust and respect, her companionship and friendship. He has earned his language, he has earned his claws.

He has earned Hannibal. Perhaps the most important, most exquisite thing. He has earned the man as his, his love and respect and adoration, as Hannibal had earned himself his boy.

The general takes his breakfast, still, his cup of milk and his gruel of oats sweetened with honey. Will’s words resonate in him - _I am born Greek, but my soul is Neuri_ \- and fill the spaces between his bones with a spilling warmth, words that Hannibal cannot so readily scoff and deny. He has seen Will change - insolent to thoughtful, compulsive to clever, from boy to man. From eromenos to something else entirely, something wholly Hannibal’s own.

He fights as if he were Neuri-born. Speaks the language and sees the world through new eyes, learns and lives and makes love with abandon for his own customs, given over entirely to a life that Hannibal himself had all but forced himself to forget. And if his soul speaks to him in such a way, if he needs his body to show what cries out inside of him for release, Hannibal will not deny that to him.

In truth, he’s never been able to deny anything to him, and the thought curves a smile across the general’s lips as he sucks the last of the goat’s milk from them and stands.

“I will prepare,” he tells Will, nearly shivering with the intensity of Will’s focus and pleasure when he turns to watch him. “And you will think on your lessons as I do. Not only the ones that I have taught you, but what you have learned on your own. It is only one of many, perhaps, but your first will be remembered most.”

Will nods, watches him go, and tries to still the shaking in his hands. This is a choice, entirely his own, and he had asked himself, as Hannibal so often did, if he had earned this. And the answer had more and more been yes. He wonders at his need for this, his heart beating against the space that will soon bleed for his choices. He wonders if it is to appease or appeal to, if it is to rebel and prove something, or if it truly feels right to be there, that it is his own.

Perhaps others may consider the decoration barbaric, but few would see it. In the baths, perhaps, if he were ever to tug the tunic aside for something. But no one else would be in his bed, no one else would draw fingers and lips over it but Hannibal, remembering how it had bled and healed, and how now it looks. And Hannibal would not think him ‘other’, would not think him barbaric.

He considers again the things he has earned, considers again which he can claim as his first, which he can gain after. He thinks of the horses and dogs, of the weapons and skill, he thinks, even, of Hannibal, and although he loves them all none are things that yet belong on his skin, not in the forms they hold. It would need to encompass, it would need to be what they feel like to him, not what they are.

Will laughs, shakes his head.

He stands, helps Asherah to set the plates away, the remainder of the food to go to the dogs or anyone who wished to eat it, if it could not be held the day. Then he goes to seek Hannibal. He finds him calm, as Will himself is, and settles to watch him, eyes glazed and thoughtful, heart beating thick behind his ears.

“You will talk to me?” he asks, and it’s not fear, it’s a strange sort of fascination, a deeper understanding of something Will is entirely giving himself to. “While you do it?”

Hannibal is stoking a fire in the sitting room, knelt on the floor with the little clay pot during their ritual courting the storm, the sleek bronze knife set beside it. His smile widens a little as Will comes to him, his tone soft. “As much or as little as you like. At times it helps to hear a voice, to focus on something other than the pain, at others I’ve found I can do little more than stay silent and even that a struggle.”

He sets the poker aside, fire crackling over logs that pop and snap, and moves aside in silent invitation for Will to come to him. The woven rugs that normally cover the floor have been rolled aside, and he leans near to brush a kiss across Will’s temple when the younger man kneels beside him.

“A far better place to lay than in the howling woods,” he muses, “or a soldier’s tent.” Hannibal grasps the leather-wrapped blade and holds it to the fire, until it glows hot, cradled carefully until it is no longer scalding, and he turns his eyes to Will. “What will you show, peacemaker? What of your soul will you bear to those who look upon your skin?”

Will shivers, feeling his body tense in anticipation of pain, the mere concept of it, for beyond Vih’r standing on his foot, beyond the bruises from the blunted sword, Will has not known pain, not like this, not that draws blood and then draws more. He swallows, thick, and reaches up to unpin his tunic, fold it to rest against his thighs where it is still held by his belt.

“Myself,” Will says, allowing a smile, nervous and little, before he laughs, just the same, and folds his hands together in his lap. “The only thing I have truly earned. The freedom of it, the ability to know myself, through work and fighting and learning, through the animals and through you.”

Will lifts a hand to take Hannibal’s, the one not holding the knife, and presses fire-warmed fingers to his chest, above his hammering heart. He traces two fingers there, spreads them in a curve, down to where there is but the beginning of muscle from training, just above his taut stomach. A sleek thing, not little and not gaudy. He says only the Neuri word for ‘horse’, but it has always encompassed more than just the animal, more than anything Will could suggest in Greek at all, even if he had the paper and means to attempt to explain it.

“There,” he says, and lets Hannibal’s hand go.

Hannibal’s thumb strokes across the younger man’s bare skin and he leans in to capture his lips in a kiss that says more of his gratitude than the man could put into words. Grateful to have Will here, grateful for the acceptance of this act - grateful that Will has learned and grown and made Hannibal more proud than he ever imagined he might when they first mocked each other in the baths.

“And I had worried you would come to me and ask for a fieldmouse, something very small and quickly finished,” he teases, not to lessen the weight of Will’s undertaking but to ease him into a laugh that Hannibal tastes from milk-sweet lips.

Asherah brings in linens, per the general’s request, freshly washed and soft, but regards them both with well-humored dismay as she takes in the knife, the pot of dye, Will’s trembling form kneeling in wait. She doesn’t chasten them, the energy in the room tangible to her as well, but she does give Will’s braid an affectionate tug on her way back out as Hannibal arranges the clean rags beside himself.

She shuts the door behind her, and Hannibal brushes the backs of his fingers across Will’s cheek. He studies the curve of muscle across the younger man’s chest - where it is now, and where it will appear in time, following invisible movements with his thumb, from his breast and across his shoulder, onto his back. He can see the horse there, curled locks of hair and curved body, pointed hooves as if in gallop.

He can see it on Will, worn proud and beautiful beneath his skin, and his smile grows.

“Lay back,” Hannibal murmurs, “and we will begin.”

WIll nods, shifts, shivers despite the fire, despite the warm hands and warmer words, despite this being entirely his choice, he has never felt his skin crackle with electricity, has never felt his breath grow cold in his lungs, his stomach churn so strongly as now. He feels his throat tighten, feels his breathing hitched before he steadies it, and all the while he’s smiling, lips pulled in a grin and softened, before flickering wider again. Will curls his fists into the soft fabric of his chiton and forces his heart to slow.

“It is through blood and water that we communicate with the gods, have them listen,” Hannibal explains, perhaps unnecessarily, with how much Will now knows, how hungry he has been for information since he had been allowed to understand, to see these customs. “It is through them that we can see, hear them, understand them. And it is through them we can send our own messages and words, for them to hear us as well.”

The blade is warm but not hot when it rests against Will’s skin and he swallows, eyes to Hannibal as the other meets his.

“They have heard you before, and now they will remember you,” Hannibal tells him, and Will licks his lips with a shuddering sigh, biting his bottom lip before nodding, taking a breath.

“Breathe,” murmurs Hannibal, as the knife splits skin.

It is not a deep cut, but enough that blood wells red and slips hot across Will’s skin in a trickle. He gasps, shudders, and settles again, laughing, with a shaking hand across his face. Hannibal’s own hand, however, is entirely steady as he marks a long curve in blood, in heat and pain. His breath is timed, soft praise exhaled slow as he cuts, drawn just as patiently as he wipes Will’s skin clear to begin again, the seemingly soft material rough as it wipes across fresh-cut flesh.

When he stops, blade set aside, Will exhales all at once, body vibrating outside of his control in the dizziness that takes him. Hannibal runs a hand through Will’s hair, and reaches to the pot, smearing ink and ash across his fingers that he rubs along the still-dripping cut. “Beautiful,” he murmurs. “You are so strong, Will.” He means it, every word, savoring the freedom to speak so freely, to know that Will hears it resonate, carried deep from the pain and shock of the experience. “I am so proud of you,” Hannibal whispers, brushing a kiss across Will’s sweat-damp brow before taking up the knife again.

Will loses track of what is one long slice and which are smaller, he forgets when pain ends and more starts because it numbs together, and his entire body is shaking. He takes breaths, quick and shallow before Hannibal’s voice brings him back enough to remember to slow them, to allow his body to take the air in. His head spins, throat dry, and he grips hard against his chiton with one hand, enough to whiten his knuckles, as the other presses stars into his eyes.

He doesn’t realize he’s crying until his hand is gently pulled from his face and Hannibal kisses him, brushes his tears from his cheeks with a rough thumb.

“Sit up,” he says, and Will shakes his head quickly.

“It’s not finished?”

“It isn’t, but if you do not take in some water now you will not last long enough to see it through.”

Will swallows, does as he’s told, supporting himself on his shaking hands as he takes the cup Hannibal offers him, drinking as the cup is tilted for him, until it runs from his lips and down his chin and he hisses as it hits an open cut.

Will looks down, sees his chest a mess of blood and ash, thick and caked in pieces where Hannibal had rubbed it in and scraped it away. He cannot yet see a pattern on his shoulder, cannot make out anything but the mess, and yet he can feel every line, every drawn stroke beat with the rhythm of his heart, and if he closes his eyes he can see it, the horse with hoof raised and head ducked, no mane yet, no torso, nothing but the hoof and head, elaborately detailed and beautifully curved.

Will laughs, bites his lip and laughs again, and opens his eyes to look at Hannibal again.

He is wonderful.

Hannibal kisses his adoration against Will’s mouth, his cheek, his brow and his hair. It is an important lesson, and one he is lucky to learn in an environment so controlled - that pain can be overcome, that blood dries, and wounds heal. That the mind even half-mad with agony finds a way to drive the body onward, breathing and alive.

“Men do not fear injury,” Hannibal murmurs, a strong hand cradling Will’s head against his shoulder, tears running hot against his chest. “They fear pain. They fear pain because most are sheltered enough to never know it. Once you have faced it, once you know that it is temporary, you no longer fear it.”

Words that Will may remember, he hopes, or he may not, depending on how far inside himself he’s gone. But the experience, that will remain, and yet continue. They are far from done, and in this too is an important teaching - that Will can withstand much more than he ever imagined he might.

“If you need wine, I will fetch it for you,” Hannibal tells him. “But know that while it will help for a time, its effects will lessen and you will feel the pain anew, perhaps greater for having numbed it briefly. Drink your water. Breathe. Let your sighs fill you and carry the pain from your body, slow and steady.”

He draws a kiss against one tearful cheek, savoring the sweet and honest suffering that Will withstands so bravely, and moves to settle behind him instead, to continue the horse across his shoulder, onto his back. Every cut, long or small, is rubbed after with red-ochred ash, to ensure that if he heals and does not scar, the marks remain. Hannibal is steady, patient in his strokes, none deeper than necessary enough to see blood well, far from the fat, the muscle that lies beneath.

And all the while he speaks, tells Will stories of his childhood. Fond memories of his parents, festivals that his people held at different times of year, the food they ate, the homes they lived in. Funny stories of his friends, as a boy, and the pranks they made, the games they played - at being warriors, often enough. The first time that Hannibal remembers riding a horse without his father behind him, how scared he had been and then how joyous in the wild freedom that possessed him. How his sister would sit before him, held with an arm around her waist, as Hannibal told her stories of the gods and spirits that lived in every tree and stream and stone around them.

It hurts less, here, on his back, but Will shakes regardless, hands curled in the fabric of his clothes, trembling even as he forces the hold to relax, fingers seeking across the soft cloth instead, fanning out and releasing again, over and over. He listens, allows the words to lull him as his tears dry, as he grows used to the pain that will pass, the pain that he now knows the feeling of, now knows how to combat and calm his breathing for.

When Hannibal strokes his hair from his face, Will leans his head back against his shoulder, takes the water offered again and chokes on it before sitting up to drink properly. He is so tired, and he has done nothing but tremble and quake. His entire body aches, muscles tense and sore, though beyond a laugh he has made very little sound at all, just labored breaths and spasms of pain in his arm. His shoulder feels on fire. Will realizes that he feels a little sick.

He does not look at the blood that soaks into his clothes, most likely soaks into Hannibal’s, it would certainly aggravate that feeling. So instead he laughs again, curls his feet beneath him and groans softly as he tries to move and finds himself stopped.

“I won’t be able to find rest,” he complains gently, turning to nuzzle against Hannibal’s shoulder. “I hurt everywhere.”

“You will grow used to it, once it becomes an ache. Sleep on your right side, the skin will heal itself, it knows how.”

Will laughs and bites his lip, brows drawing as Hannibal whispers that they are not yet done, that there are just a few more things to complete before they are, that Will is so strong, braver than he has known himself to be, and Will has to agree. He had not thought he would be able to willingly allow a man to take a knife to him.

He turns just enough to press a hot, open-mouthed kiss to Hannibal’s throat, lingering until the man hums, draws fingers through Will’s hair.

Hannibal can see how pale the younger man has grown, now that even the trembling has subsided, his body exhausted by its own reactions to this, and he remembers the ache well. The same tight, bruised feeling, bone-deep, after a battle - every muscle worked to exhaustion until they give and soften because they can hold out no longer. Will is pliant, all but draped against him, and Hannibal adjusts to let Will rest back against his chest. He hisses when he does, but then settles, eyes closed - squeezing when the blade touches again - his jaw twitching in a grimace as Hannibal works ornamentation into the creature.

“You may be sick after this,” Hannibal murmurs, Will’s hair soft against his cheek when he turns his head to nuzzle. “You should eat again, once you are, to give your body strength to heal. Wine then, to dull the sharpness of the pain, and set you to sleep.”

Another swipe of ink and ash, rubbed deep, earns little more now than a whimper. Another cut, the tip of his knife turning careful spirals, far more ornate than what he has been capable of doing to himself. Another swipe, another cut, patient, slow.

“Beautiful Will,” Hannibal praises him. “You would make my tribe proud.” He sets the knife aside, smearing pigment against the last cut, before he curls an arm around Will’s neck, careful not to touch the seeping wounds. “You make me proud,” he whispers.

Will shivers at the words, sniffs quietly before shifting further back against Hannibal, a comfort, a warmth and weight. Holding him, now, after causing him so much pain, at Will’s own behest. Because Will had _trusted_ him to do this. He feels his entire body almost spark with every warm breath against him, every touch. He feels alive in a way he never has before, he can feel his heart beat in every pore of his skin.

“I’ve never felt like this before,” Will admits quietly, watching the fire, watching the way it dances and moves, the way it had before their storm, when Will had shed this skin and taken up another. Perhaps it feels similar to that, but only a little, only enough. Will swallows, feels his blood heat, need, want just pulling through him.

“Will you wash it clean?” He asks gently, biting his lip again and knowing his eyes are wide as they stare, pain still flooding his system with wonderful cool adrenaline. “Let me see?”

Hannibal looks down across Will’s chest, smeared in brown dried blood and black ash and trickles of red where the wounds still leak, becoming clear drips that leave their own pathways through the mire. The scent of it, acrid fire and metallic blood, fills Hannibal’s nose and sends a shiver down his spine, and Will’s skin tastes of tears when Hannibal kisses his cheek, salty and warm. Will is breathtaking, this way, a show of strength and a primal humanity that forces him to staunch his words where they fill his mouth. Declarations and promises, oaths and sworn adoration, the world and all in it that he would give to his boy if only he would stay.

If only.

“Come,” Hannibal manages, and even this is tight in his throat as he stands, apart from Will only long enough to duck and scoop him from the floor, carrying the boy across his arms. Hannibal’s chiton is nearly as stained as Will’s own, and though Asherah watches wide-eyed as they pass, the general pays it no mind.

“Wine,” he tells her. “Bread and cheese. Cakes, with honey, please.”

She nods, nothing more to say as she watches them go, before turning to begin her directions to the others, to clean and to prepare. Another slave follows after Hannibal, to bring him a hydria freshly filled from the well, and Hannibal murmurs his thanks as he carefully, gently sets Will to stand in the bath. It is only for as long as it takes the man to peel the stiff, sticky garment from Will’s hips, ducking to slide it from his legs. Will laughs, a little, dizzy as he rests a hand on Hannibal’s shoulder, lifting one foot, and then the other, to bare himself.

The tunic is handed off to the slave who departs for the house and Hannibal grasps Will’s hips, bowed before him, heated kisses dragged open-mouthed and wanting up the younger man’s belly.

Will shudders, fingers curling in Hannibal’s hair hard before he eases the grip, moderates his responses from his agonized grasping to holding another, touching and worshiping and adoring another. He laughs when Hannibal draws his hot tongue against his skin, sucks his belly in when Hannibal’s beard tickles against it. It feels good, it feels so good.

Will feels as though he could do anything in the world, right at this moment, anything at all.

And he wants to be nowhere but here, before Hannibal, with him so close.

He thinks of telling him, of how he wishes to stay, how he will not remain at his father’s house when they go, by necessity. He thinks of telling him he never wants to leave again, that were the war to grow inescapable, he would follow Hannibal to that too.

He says nothing, instead, tries to catch his breath and steady himself as he tilts his head back and closes his eyes, body arched in a pleasing curve, as the horse against his skin is, just so. He bites his lip as Hannibal tongues against the drying blood on his chest, swallows.

“Have you become a wolf once more?” He asks him, and his voice has sunk lower, into an exhaustion, a pleasure of having the man this way, always, so close. “Hungering for my blood? I would give it willingly.”

“You have, already, more than enough,” Hannibal assures him, and his lips brush against a thick smudge of blood and ash and he licks it from his lips, goosebumps skittering across his skin as the taste spreads bitter over his tongue.

Standing again, Hannibal reaches into the jug with his hands, cupping cool water to cascade down Will’s body. The younger man gasps, at the stark cold against hot skin, that somehow burns still when it washes over his cuts, seeping only clear fluid now that carries in it remnants of black ash. A fresh agony that pales him, but still he stands, fingers spreading and clenching into fists, again and again, head ducked as Hannibal washes him clean.

He does touch, gentle enough not to upset the fresh scabs stiffening across Will’s skin but to rub away the blood that covers him, sticky and thick. As careful as he is it still pulls a moan from the younger man, bruised and tender skin seeming to pulse in time with his heart as it’s touched, rinsed again with chilled water, until finally he is clean and shivering in the cool dusk.

A clean robe, dyed to a crimson red - wisely chosen and sent out by Asherah - is wrapped around Will’s shoulders, and he is bundled in it, carried close to Hannibal’s chest back to the house, to bed, where food waits for him and even the softness of the mattress draws a hiss of pain.

Hannibal does not hesitate now, to kiss the boy, to bite gently and suck marks against the unmarred side of his chest, all hands and mouth and worship as Will lays spread before him - his Will, his beautiful strong Will, Neuri now to the world as he is inside.

_My soul is Neuri._

Blessed by gods who watch over them both, kin to Hannibal as if made so by blood - and perhaps, he imagines, Will is now that, as well. He loves him, as a boy and as a man, as if he were a son and as if he were a brother, and in more ways still than that. His tribe, his own, his Will.

The words fall in a flurry, unaware that he speaks them out loud against Will’s skin, conscious only of the young man beneath him, who arches and moans as Hannibal takes him into his mouth.

Will makes a pitiful sound, high and needy, bracing his feet against the bed as his knees tremble, his thighs spread. Pain and pleasure all at once, throbbing through him, dizzying him, pulling his heart to beat faster, his breath to come warmer, panting out against his hand before he moves it to cover his eyes instead, laughing, again, always laughing, in pleasure to feel all of this, everything.

Will feels entirely alive.

“Hannibal,” he groans, turns to his right side so the cuts don’t rub against the robe, red though it may be, twists and curls against the bed that way as Hannibal near-worships the boy with his tongue - and Will lets him.

“God never stop,” he gasps, lips curling up again, eyes narrowed beneath his hand before he just closes them and lets out a long breath of pleasure. “Never stop, none of it…”

Hannibal runs his hands along Will’s shaking thighs, lets his cock fall wet against his belly to kiss the legs he has loved so long already, strong now, soft skin toughening from riding, from work, and Hannibal loves him even still. He sucks against Will’s thigh until he squirms, the next in turn, nose brushing through the thick swath of dark hair between his legs as he dips his tongue lower, to taste Will there, up again to gasp against the younger man’s rigid length - a testament to youth as much as to Will himself that he could be so hard right now - before sucking him deep again.

He will not stop. Not this, not now, not until he must, when Will departs from him to live amongst the elevated of Athens, leaves him to seek the Council in place of his father, goes from him to marry, to have children.

And even then, Hannibal will think of him. He cannot imagine a day that he would not seek for Will’s warmth beside him, and when that first day comes he will clutch the blankets to his chest instead and try to find Will’s smell among them.

And he will love him even then.

Will arches, presses, allows his body to entirely let go; of propriety or shyness or anything at all but feeling this, all of this, all of the man against him, now. He drops his free hand to curl in Hannibal’s hair, tugging the braid, curling it around his fingers, pulling harder then. This is life for him, this is freedom, to feel them both together so close, now, with everything between them is everything for him.

Will squirms, close, and Hannibal knows to stop, knows to slow and adjust, to not bring the boy over too quickly. He caresses Will’s belly with warm lips, kisses higher to his chest, peels back the robe that has not yet fallen from him to the bed and kisses there too, pressing heavy over Will this way, kissing his neck, his cheek, whispering words of adoration, love against him.

And Will grins, coiling his limbs spry around him, holding him and goading all at once, hair a mess against the pillow, some cuts seeping again but never enough to be worrisome. Will is dizzy, he is tired, he hurts, everywhere, and he cannot stop.

“More,” he begs, of anything. Of everything.

The world, if he asked for it.

The little glass alabastron that now resides beside the bed is emptied into Hannibal’s hand, oil stroked slick across his length, rubbed between Will’s legs in turn. He will give Will more, as he asked, and only because he has asked - because somehow, in spite of hours of suffering, he can still take _more_. Because he wants now for pleasure, rather than pain.

Because Hannibal wishes to know him, as many times as they are able, before he goes. Memories and memories to draw from, that must need suffice for as long as the man can hold to them.

Hannibal grasps Will around his middle and turns him to sit astride, to stop his wounds from rubbing against the rough blankets. The soft robe around him slips free and for a moment stills Hannibal’s ardor, eyes narrowing as his smile widens, and breaks into a grin.

“Look, Will. See.”

And Will does, sees the skin swelling in lines of red, dark in the middle against his skin. He sees the skin of a warrior, a man come of age, he sees the skin of Neuri, marks earned and honored, elaborate and intricate and utterly, exquisitely beautiful.

He laughs, eyes narrowed, bright, delighted at how it looks, how it _feels_ still, with the pain and throbbing heat against it, Will brings a hand up to touch, just gently, just once, skimming small fingers over the marks that cover him on chest and back, over his shoulder, farther still and larger still than he had imagined he ever could have.

“It’s beautiful,” Will says, turns his hand to rest against Hannibal’s own marks, his own now healed, though once they too were just as hot, throbbed just as keenly with his heart. Will sits closer, chest to chest with Hannibal uncaring for the wince it draws from himself, the pain that rears dull against him, through him. Sits closer, sits up, and guides Hannibal up against him before he sinks down with a groan.

It is slow, a deliberate stretch without preparation, this pain mingling with the other, burning Will’s eyes in blue flame. He arches again, head back, allows the stars he sees gathering, feels dizzying him, flood his vision.

He whispers, curses and pleas and adoration in Neuri, feeling Hannibal tremble in hearing it, turn to bite against him, suck a bruise to his skin in fervor, in need as he groans his own pleasure against Will’s slick skin.

Hannibal imagined, often, trying to find another of his tribe. Someone to speak with. Someone to fall in love with, a woman in his imaginings, who would speak to him in their secret shared language and touch his tattoos and understand. The gods, Hannibal laughs, have a very strange sense of humor, as it’s not a woman of his tribe who sits astride him and spills beautiful words, but a Grecian boy whose marks mirror his own.

Someone to fall in love with.

Someone who understands.

Hannibal reaches to snare Will’s hair, the little braid, in a firm grip and he brings their mouths together. Lips spread and drag and part and close together, tongues diving against each other as if licking honey from the other’s mouth. Hannibal rises to meet Will’s hips as the younger man presses his fingernails sharp into his chest, body shifting as he takes Hannibal thick and heavy inside of him, and turns his body in lithe undulations that rip low groans from the man beneath. His eyes remain open, just enough to see the cuts swollen dark across Will’s skin, dancing spirals and pointed hooves and the wild bend of a horse at full gallop, curved and looping and as fiercely elegant as the boy who wears it.

When they part to suck down air between their mouths, Hannibal holds their foreheads together, and whispers in a rough-edged broken sigh that he will, always, love him.

Will’s lips part but he says nothing, just makes a gentle sound in his throat, a click, a gasp, and swallows again. He knows. It frightens and frees and delights him that he _knows_ entirely, that he is loved, is wanted, entirely belongs to another.

He moves faster, quick jerking pushes down against Hannibal, forehead to his when their lips don’t meet, barely brushing when they do. He is heat and motion and energy, he is a storm in himself, of pain and pleasure, the giving of life and the taking of it, all twisted tight like a string within this boy, this one boy.

He holds onto Hannibal as he cums, weak little whimpers falling against his neck as Will tenses his body, relaxes it, over and over, clinging to Hannibal for the joy of it, the pleasure and adoration of it. To hold him just as surely together as the man holds him.

He hopes Hannibal will not go to the polis tomorrow, he hopes they have time, just one day, of so few left, to be together this way, hot breaths and soft hands, as Will aches and laughs for it, listens to Hannibal’s stories and imagines his own.

Burying his face against Will’s neck, Hannibal holds him near, an arm around his shoulder, the other around his waist, shivering when Will curls his fingers through Hannibal’s hair to loosen it from its braid. A simple embrace and anything but, a pleasure that makes his heart beat faster to feel Will’s quickening in turn.

Hannibal will remember this. The request and the act itself, the acceptance and the adoration. He will remember this and he will remember Will as he’s remembered every other who has been lost to him. He hopes that his heart will always race when he does.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal was given a task, to teach Euthymius’ son in the ways of war and history and strategy of language, to guide him into manhood and return him grown. What has happened beyond that does not change the task that Hannibal was given, and he would hardly be a worthy general if he did not see a command through until its end.
> 
> No matter how badly he wants to resist it.
> 
> No matter how deep the bruise inside his chest spreads.

Will wakes alone, the day he turns nineteen.

Hannibal is already out in the fields with the horses, taking over grooming and care while Will gathers his things. He does so quickly enough, what few belongings he had brought with him coming here. He will have his clothes, he supposes, his panoply, his hounds… though those he will have to convince his father to allow him to keep. Perhaps one to travel with, then, the rest later, with the rest of his things.

He folds his scrolls into a sheet, as he had three years ago, coming here. He folds his cloak atop them. The dogs sniff around him curiously before he finally ushers them through the corridor and outside through the kitchen and takes off at a run towards the beach. They follow, bellowing and pleased, and Hannibal’s own hounds take off after the party on some instinct, perhaps, that this could be the last time they get to.

Hannibal watches Will take his dogs, feels a sickening tightness in his throat in seeing him deliberately misstep, cry out as though in fear as his dogs swarm him, tails high and wagging in a blur. Beasts, now, all of them. Taller than Beli in the fields, though the little horse has grown used to them all by now, carefully sniffing the hounds as they had sniffed him in turn. Hannibal finds he cannot take his eyes off of the boy when he stands again, whistles, shrill and sharp, and holds all the hounds at attention. His hand is in the air, a moment, two, before Will drops it, and the dogs hasten past him to the sand, to the water beyond, Will laughing in their wake, hands up in his hair before he jogs to follow.

Hannibal once loved the quiet of the farm. It made its own noise, certainly, all the animals and people who lived there, but there were moments where nothing stirred more than the hollow breath of horses and the shiver of leaves in the olive trees. He had missed it, early on, when Will filled every space with presence even in his silence. And now, with the echoing joy of dogs and laughter, it is unfathomable.

He will, he imagines, become used to the quiet once more.

Hannibal leads his horse from the pasture to the stable, and he wonders as he has many times if he hasn't struck an unwitting bargain with ill-humored gods. He was granted his life, but his family's lives were taken. He was given a means to live beyond slavery, but must war to keep it. A home, but no family to fill it. Time enough to fall in love and feel it shared, time that now runs short.

Always a give and take, a balancing that Hannibal has never yet reconciled in his favor.

His horse groomed but not yet saddled, Will finds him in the stable with Vih'r in tow. He steps to Hannibal, lead held in strong hands, and lifts his chin in wait to be greeted, but Hannibal merely smiles, the most heartfelt one he can muster, before smoothing Will's hair back and kissing his brow.

"All is prepared but you, now, and your panoply, not yet complete," Hannibal tells him, tension in his tone as he turns towards his horse. "Perhaps I - I might bring it to you, when it is." A pause, uncertain, before he adds with gentle mirth, "To bring along the rest of your hounds as well."

Will tries to ignore the way disappointment tugs at his heart and finds it difficult. Instead he just nods. Shrugs. Moves to saddle his horse as well, in silence, beside Hannibal.

After that, it does not take long. Asherah fusses, though she pretends not to, with packing them food for the ride, manages to load more onto Will’s horse than he had ever thought the little thing capable of carrying. She does not wish Will well, does not farewell him. She just clucks her tongue at the curls that fall into his face and sits him down to redo the braid for him.

The dogs crowd, and after a long time explaining in gestures, the two that have chosen Asherah go to her, sit at her side, and only then does she hug him, a quick pull of strong little arms around his shoulders before stepping away, gesturing that they should go, almost brusque if Will didn't catch her smile. She will miss him, he knows. And he will miss the farm.

The ride to the city does not feel as it once did, no longer an endless journey into black abyss, and they do not make their horses run, walking them calmly enough for Yelp to keep up, the only dog brought with them for the moment, perhaps as a peace offering to accept four more once Will’s panoply is delivered. They barely speak on the ride, but Will watches Hannibal, the way his shoulders bend in tiredness, displeasure, an infinite sadness he barely manages to hide behind his usual rough appearance. 

Hannibal watches Will, as well, when he feels the younger man’s eyes turn away from him. There’s a pleasure that’s genuine and petty both in how little Will looks like the well-kept son of an Athenian councillor. Shaggy hair oiled back into a lengthening braid, the glimpse of raised patterns across his skin when his chiton shifts across his shoulder, seated astride a shaggy, strong little horse that chose him as much as he chose her. More than once Hannibal fights back the urge to stop their horses alongside each other and drag the boy onto his own, to breathe oaths against his mouth and beg him to return to the farm, to live, to stay.

Every time, he resists his own impulse for such irresponsibility, and drives his mare onward towards the polis. Hannibal was given a task, to teach Euthymius’ son in the ways of war and history and strategy of language, to guide him into manhood and return him grown. What has happened beyond that does not change the task that Hannibal was given, and he would hardly be a worthy general if he did not see a command through until its end.

No matter how badly he wants to resist it.

No matter how deep the bruise inside his chest spreads.

And yet Hannibal asks, unable yet to bear the thought that he will not see or speak with Will again in months, and longer still beyond that. “Should I write to you? I might, if you like,” Hannibal ventures, and he could curse how weak he sounds. “To tell you of Beli, of Riot and Asherah. If you like.”

"You will find yourself flooded with letters in return, if you begin," Will warns, but it is not a denial, his own plea, perhaps, arranged to sound like something a Greek boy would say to his lover, as he left. Arranged to sound like the last little hope the man wants to hear. He turns to smile at Hannibal, a reassuring thing, and guides his horse close enough to brush their hands together before they continue on.

His home looks smaller, now, that he has been absent from it for many years. Letters exchanged but rarely, always too busy with the animals or at study or in the packed clay ring to bother with a long-winded letter. Will regards the place, now, as he once had Hannibal's home. It is a curious thing, welcoming but not his own, and Will dismounts first, walking the horse towards the waiting slave.

The man does not recognize Will, though he had seen the boy grow from birth, but he does recognize Hannibal, greeting the general with a deep bow and directing him inside before taking the horses. Will fidgets with the hem of his chiton, adjusts his cape to cover his tattoo - mostly healed, now, like a scar with the beautiful ink and ash Hannibal had chosen to use - and moves to run fingers through his hair before he remembers, drops his hand.

His father, too, looks smaller than Will remembers, always a commanding man, always kind but never lenient. Will swallows as his father takes in the look of him, surprise and pleasure melting to a brief expression of dismay at Will’s appearance. No matter, he can be washed, redressed, presented. He spreads his arms in greeting to them both.

"A task worthy of a general, indeed, Hannibal, to turn my son into a man. How are you?" It is warm, fond, and the men grasp hands, press the others to strong shoulders before stepping away, both turning to look at Will.

“Well enough,” Hannibal answers, mustering a genial tone and a convincing smile. “Gladdened by the news of Persia, of course.”

“Of course,” laughs Will’s father. “Though I imagine you must have been itching to go against them again.”

Hannibal merely lets his smile linger in answer, sufficient enough it seems as Euthymius turns to Will instead. He reaches as though to adjust his son’s hair but stops himself with a patient amusement. “Look at how you’ve grown,” he sighs. “Come in, then, both of you - there is wine and food. Tell me what you’ve learned.”

He grasps an arm around Will’s shoulder to usher him inside, Hannibal following politely behind, though the general wishes nothing more than to take his horse and go. He does not want to linger here, he does not want to make small talk or pretend that this is merely another friendly visit. He wants to return to his bed, empty now, and drink himself into a stupor.

Hannibal follows despite, and accepts wine when it is given to him. “His parting gifts are not yet ready,” Hannibal says. “It is custom, I understand, to give them when the agreement is at an end, but one cannot rush a blacksmith more than they can rush their fires.” The wine is finished in a single long swallow, and Hannibal wipes its remains from his chin before adding, “I will bring along his panoply as soon as it is complete. Cuirass, greaves, and helmet. Hoplon and his chosen weapons.”

"I never thought I would see the day when my son would choose a weapon," Euthymius laughs, watching Will take in the house again, the space he had grown up in, moped and read in, grew beautiful and silent in. He is such a different boy, now, tall and lean with muscle, tanned from the sun, eyes, though, just as bright, as curious and clever as they always have been.

"I'm sure he will enjoy the visit," Will’s father says, still watching his son, fond, though surprised, before laughing and cupping Will’s cheek. “Will you not speak? Days I have missed when you would not keep quiet, schooling me in philosophy and poise."

Will does smile at that, remembering his own standing presentations, thinking himself so grown at ten, twelve, sixteen still.

"I have learned the value of silence in my time away," Will laughs gently, "and everything else the general has sought to teach. I can care for horses and ride them, we delivered a foal, not a month ago -"

"And what of your skill?"

"In wit or with blade, father?" Will asks, and Hannibal can hear the slightly exasperated tone in his boy’s voice. This boy. No longer his.

"Why, both! You speak as though by rote, Will, is it so hard to speak to your own father?"

Will swallows more wine, allows the warmth to spread against his skin, as Euthymius turns to Hannibal instead, dismissing the boy for the moment as understandably overwhelmed. "Did you make my little philosopher into a soldier, Hannibal?"

“Is that not why you sent him to me?” Hannibal asks, hiding his amusement behind another cup of wine, kept full by attentive slaves.

“I had hoped he might not grow so uncouth as all that,” Euthymius answers, and Hannibal takes the slight in stride, making a considering noise in response.

“I have taught him a soldier’s skills,” responds Hannibal. “He is capable with axe and sword and shield and bow. He has learned to ride for purpose and for pleasure. We spent equal time in histories and philosophy, and in languages, one of which is now fluent and others are passable. While my own knowledge of music and art is insufficient to have given him an education in those as well, I imagine his return to the city - to civilization - will fill in what parts of his knowledge are not yet satisfied.”

Euthymius’ misgivings are eased, somewhat, as they each settle into chairs, and Hannibal settles into his third cup of wine, the second gone and filled again. Yelp settles by Hannibal’s side, head resting heavy on his leg with an unminded trickle of happy drool, and Hannibal works his fingers behind the dog’s ears.

“Will is every part the peacemaker that he was when he left with me,” Hannibal finishes, “and capable now of overseeing his own home.”

Brightening at this, Will’s father turns to him, leaning close with a broad smile. “Then it sounds as if I’ll be bringing you to the Council with me,” he tells him, eager now as Will once had been to introduce him to politics and policy, to running not only a home but the city itself. “And,” he says with a rich laugh, “we’ll have to find you a wife. Once we’ve cleaned you up, anyway - farm life has taken its toll, I see.”

"I -"

"Always so determined to speak to the Council as I did," Euthymius shakes his head at the memory. "Begging me to allow him to come with me, and now so quiet!"

"The ride was long, and I did not exempt the boy from his chores this morning," Hannibal responds, thinks of Will running through the fields in delight, dogs swarming him, jumping up, taller than Will when on their back legs. Chores. He would see the boy complete those every morning if he could.

"I wish to spend the remaining weeks with the general," Will says, eyeing the cup of wine Hannibal brings to his mouth and counting it the fifth, displeased at the notion of the man sinking so far to the taste of it, now. "It is custom that I may choose, and I choose to."

Euthymius blinks, frowns, but allows, with a nod, that that is true. "Very well. The weeks remaining in your contract you may spend with the general in study, but Will, once that is complete, you will be a man of Athens, and you will go to Council with me, take a wife."

"A man is measured by what he can give, father, not a status. The lowliest of soldiers fight just as hard as men in rank, if not harder still. Perhaps I no longer wish to be a Councilman. I find my interests to be spreading broader and farther than that, will you not let me explore them?" Will’s tone is genial but there is something in it that stops both his father and mentor. Hannibal sets down his wine. Euthymius narrows his eyes in clear displeasure. 

"Will -"

"I have found my skills among the animals, in fighting well enough."

"You must take a wife -"

"I do not wish for more companionship than what the Gods have blessed me with," Will replies, calmly, tapping his fingers against the table gently, eyes up to meet his father's. "I would like to complete my contract with Hannibal, as is custom, and begin another. That is allowed."

Hannibal is careful to control himself, to mute the sigh that shakes from him in dizzying relief. Even still, a matter of weeks remaining, even still, another goodbye at the end of it, but it is more than they had moments before. Euthymius looks to Hannibal though, imploring.

“Speak sense to him, general, he seems to regard you highly enough, in mimicry at least.” The words are not without disdain, however unintentional, and Hannibal finds it does not shake him nearly as much as what Will seems to be proclaiming.

Their eyes meet, night and sea, across the seats from each other, and as if aware of the tension, Yelp woofs a little wheeze and clambers onto the couch beside Hannibal, sitting heavy against him.

“It is also custom that you marry,” Hannibal reminds Will, his gaze and tone both softened now, words he is reluctant to speak but knows that he must. Duty, always duty, above all else. “Whether or not you choose to pursue politics, a man of your status - a born citizen of the city - is expected to take a wife to bear your children.” The fifth cup is gone and Hannibal now declines a sixth, raising a heavy hand before letting it come to rest against the dog who sits as tall as he does. “What other contract do you mean, peace- Will?”

"Expectation led me to be given to an erastes," Will reminds them both, brow raised, "and you must both understand, if not accept, the consequences of that decision. I do not wish to marry. I do not wish a wife to bear me children. I wish to remain with the general in every capacity granted us by the state. And such capacities, father, are granted."

"Surely this is a joke. An unfortunate jest. You will be ridiculed, and I will not allow it."

"Today, I became a man," Will reminds him. “A son of Athens not only capable of making my choices but now entitled to have them heard, understood, and acquiesced to."

"You have turned him barbaric," Euthymius frowns at Hannibal, the other unable to comment before Will interrupts, voice still calm, entirely diplomatic. A tone and confidence to bring his father pride, but for the words he utters.

"He has turned me into a man, with well-rounded knowledge and education, as you had tasked him. He is not to blame for my choices, or at all. I stand by them, father, I will not return to be a councilman, and I will not take a wife."

Despite Will’s words it is only Hannibal that Euthymius focuses on now, fraught with insult and shock. “What did you do to him, Hannibal?”

“No more than the order that was given -”

“Don’t give me that,” Euthymius seethes. “Don’t treat me as one of your soldiers. You have had your way with him, haven’t you? Beyond what is allowed, you have _corrupted_ him.” Hannibal’s jaw sets but he does not speak now, eyes settled on Will, seeking the truth of his words, finding it there and taking what solace it offers him as Euthymius stands, roiling with anger. “After everything that I gave you -”

“I did not know his intentions -”

“I bought you,” Will’s father reminds him, wise enough not to step towards Hannibal but to cut far deeper with his words instead. “I took you out of slavery and I taught you, Hannibal, an insolent and brutish child that would have been beaten to death for it by anyone else. Have you forgotten that? That everything you have now is due to my benevolence?”

“What I have, I earned in war -”

“Fought in the armor that I bought for you! With weapons that I gave to you!” Euthymius’ voice rings, and Hannibal can do no more than weather it, knowing that this is his own truth to bear. “Who vouched for you to become a citizen? A _citizen_ , Hannibal, I have made you who you are and this is your gratitude to me.”

Hannibal swallows roughly, expression dark with the rightful shame that weighs his shoulders, draws lines down his face. “I did not know his intentions, Euthymius, I swear it.”

“Everything you need, you have, but you’ve never been happy with that, have you? You have never stopped being that insolent and brutish child, and so being forbidden a wife, you take my _son_ as one instead.”

“He did what was within his rights as an erastes, father,” Will tells him, forcing his own voice calm, trying to retain at least some semblance of it in light of his father’s anger, Hannibal’s resignation to being so chastised. “Everything else was within my rights as an eromenos to deny, allow or take. He did not corrupt me with this any more than he did with teaching me of war, with taking me to Symposium. He is a good man, father, you are an excellent judge of them, and you know that beneath your anger.”

“I will not hear your arguments.”

“No, you merely will not listen to them,” Will replies quietly, watches the anger slip further beneath his father’s skin, where it will fester or fade. He knows the man well, has seen this happen with himself, when he had done something to displease him, to disobey or dishonor him.

“You are a foolish boy,” Euthymius hisses, but it is not spiteful, it is almost frightened, a fear a parent has for their child - their only child - in regards to what the world will do to to him for his choices. He does not look at Hannibal again when he turns to Will properly. “A foolish and irrational boy.”

“Unfit for the council,” Will replies, a small smile against his lips that his father curses at.

“Do not play at this, Will, it is your life.”

“It is,” he agrees, stands, watches his father take him in again, lost, almost helpless in seeing him this way and being entirely unable to change his mind, knowing that. “And this is how I will choose to live it. If it will dishonor you, I will not come into the polis, I will not show my face. But I will not change my mind.”

A moment, two, before his father steps closer to embrace him, hold Will close and allow him to lift his hands to hold him in turn.

“I could not get you to leave, and now I cannot make you stay,” he murmurs, and Will laughs. “Headstrong, immovable as your mother was.”

Hannibal sits, thunderstruck and dizzy with wine, with heat that boils up wild inside of him. He wants to go to Will, now, to gather him in his arms and tell him he is a fool and that he will love him for as long as Will allows. He may still change his mind, there is time enough for that in his youth, and in truth Hannibal expects it - once his fascination wears into tedium, once the adventure becomes another day of chores and rural quiet - but for now, it is a gift, and Hannibal keeps his prayers of thanks silent to the coy and unpredictable gods who have moved Will in such a way.

Back to the farm.

Back to Hannibal’s arms again.

The forgiveness of a father to his son is not shared with Hannibal, and he can feel it in Euthymius’ look that passes over him. He is not a son to the man, no matter how often Hannibal envisioned himself to be, he is an outsider here as he is in all places. A barbarian, uncouth and unkind, even to the man who once saw him - he thought - as more.

“Stay for dinner, at least,” Euthymius insists, the anger quieting from his voice, though acceptance does not yet take its place.

Hannibal can hardly stand to follow them. The wine does not help, but it’s more than that, guilt and relief and guilt for his relief intermingling enough to quiet him, and disincline him from apologies that he would not mean. Euthymius regards him at length and Hannibal inclines his head, to excuse himself. “I will see to the horses. You two have much to catch up on.”

They stay for dinner, and while Will can pacify his father with his words, proof of things he has learned and excelled at, the man will not look at Hannibal again when he returns to wait. Will finds himself wondering, almost angry on the older man’s behalf, as to why he is simply taking this anger, why he is not explaining how this is entirely mutual, how, for them, on their farm, with their horses, their dogs and themselves they need nothing else.

That when war comes, and it will come - Will is not so naive, now, to think it will not - they will fight side by side and kill anyone who thinks harm upon their lover.

It is Will who denies a room for the night, Will who explains that though he will write, he will not come back home to live. Perhaps, they agree, once a month, or more frequently if he is able. So they may talk and know each other as men, now, not just a son and his father. They part amicably, though reluctantly, on Euthymius’ part.

He does not offer Hannibal more than a passing glance in farewell, though his ire has been quelled by his son. Perhaps one day he will be able to look upon the general again and not see him as a barbarian.

Will accepts their horses from the slave who had taken then, still loaded for the road, though looking pleased and fed enough to make the trip back without incident. They mount, and with a grin, Will leans close enough for Hannibal to hear him, but no one else: “Do you prefer the front or the rear, general?”

And with that, he takes off, Vih’r flying down the road, with Hannibal watching behind, astounded, bewildered, and entirely too amused, before he gives chase.

Dust pounds beneath their hooves, swerving around an unhappy merchant returning from the agora. The sun is set but the moon is bright enough to light the world in shadow around them, and Hannibal is gaining on Will’s lead - Vih’r lives up to her namesake, the speedy little thing - when he stops, suddenly, his own horse’s sides heaving beneath his legs. He looks back over his shoulder to see Yelp clamoring closer as quickly as his long legs will carry him, his silent barks becoming audible wheezes only as he catches up.

By then Will has circled back, grinning as Hannibal ducks and with a grunt, heaves the massive dog up to splay across his horse’s back, pressed against the general’s thighs.

“Stupid dog,” Hannibal praises him, as Yelp goes limp as a lamb carried from going too far afield, tail thwacking happily against his horse’s withers.

Alone on the road, Hannibal watches Will approach him, shoulders straight with confidence, chin held high with pride, hips shifting comfortably with the stride of Vih’r beneath him. He is like a different person, somehow entirely the same, an insolent boy and a man of Hannibal’s own tribe in equal parts.

And beautiful. Entirely beautiful.

When their horses sidle near together, their legs caught between them as hooves shift uncertain, Hannibal grasps Will’s face and drags him near, mouths pressing together not so much in a kiss as simply to breathe the other in. A hand smooths back across Will’s hair, foreheads pressed together as they rock on the patient animals beneath them, but it is not due to the horses that Hannibal’s hands are shaking as he holds Will near.

“You are a fool,” he whispers.

“And you not at all wise if you thought I would leave,” Will replies, just as soft, just as tender when he turns his head against the rough hands on him, against the man before him. “You are a fool much more than I.”

A kiss then, quick, teasing, and Will pulls back, laughs as he pets Yelp’s shaggy head, and clicks his tongue to guide Vih’r from the city, towards the long sloping paths through the fields and farms back to their own.

It is dark, but not cold, and Will stays ahead of Hannibal simply for amusement’s sake, keeping Vih’r in check with her speed but enough that she is always a few steps in front. They pass familiar trees, familiar fences and small houses, lights on within but no one around without, too late in the day for anything but dinner and rest. He arches his neck, spreads his arms and rides, for a while, with his eyes closed and feeling the wind against his skin. Then he stops, waits for Hannibal to catch up, stop beside him and lean in to press his nose against Will’s neck, up behind his ear.

“Set him down,” Will says softly, watching as Hannibal manhandles the enormous dog to the ground again, where he immediately runs to the tall grass to roll, to stretch his limbs and relieve himself. Then Will turns, dismounts and allows Vih’r to graze as she chooses by the side of the road. He removes his cloak, carefully setting it where Yelp had lain, against Hannibal’s thighs, keeps his eyes on Hannibal as he walks off the road and into the small copse of trees several feet away.

Hannibal swallows, delighting for a moment more in watching Will’s confident strides, relishing the way that his heart hammers unquiet in his chest when he was certain that he would be returning home alone, and it would be entirely stilled by the time he arrived. He dismounts and tucks his horse’s reins safely around the saddle, patting her haunches as she clops towards her daughter to graze on the thick green grasses.

He follows Will.

He would follow him into Hades itself if he must.

But it is only to the thicket of trees, bent olive branches twining together overhead, and he stops when Will stops. Sighs when Will sighs. Closes his eyes as Will’s hand comes to rest on his face and ease away the guilt that has curved his shoulders since they left the polis.

“I did not mean to shame you,” Hannibal murmurs, turning his cheek against Will’s hand and breathing warm into his palm. “Not to your father. Not ever.” Another rough swallow clicks in the tightness of his throat and Hannibal lifts his hand to press over Will’s. “I would have loved you still, had you stayed. If I never saw you again, peacemaker, I would love you until the gods take me.”

“Then love me until they do,” Will tells him, drawing Hannibal down to bend, just enough, Will up on his tiptoes already to meet him midway with a kiss, arms wrapping around Hannibal’s broad shoulders, working to unclip his cloak as well, let it fall to the grass around them. It is dark, the moon just a sliver in the sky but it’s enough, Will knows the man blind, he knows him by touch and taste and smell, he knows the way his heart beats and when it will speed.

He grins, turning to whisper against Hannibal quietly, “You gave me no gift for my birthday.”

It’s a tease, playful, allowing them to breathe, just a little together, here. Will’s fingers tug gently against Hannibal’s braid, lower still to slip between his shoulders beneath the fabric of his tunic, holding him close, reassuring him with touch that he is here, he is not going anywhere.

“Terrible, erastes,” he sighs, eyes barely open, lip between his teeth. “You are cruel to me.”

“Then you have made an unfortunate choice, eromenos. Returning to chores and training rather than remaining in a life of luxury,” Hannibal informs him, a grin hidden against Will’s neck. He snares Will by the thighs and turns him, pressing him to the trunk of an old olive tree. Lifting a hand, he slips Will’s chiton from his shoulder, and draws languid kisses against the horse that curves inked and scarred across Will’s skin.

With one arm curved beneath Will to keep him held, his other hand now skims beneath his tunic, over thighs at which Hannibal has worshipped now for years - may, still, for years more to come. The thought pulls a sound from him, aching soft, and Hannibal drags his lips across Will’s cheek, watching from near as scarlet spills across the bridge of his sun-freckled nose.

“I have no gifts to give,” Hannibal whispers. “Nothing with me but the clothes that I wear and the horse on which I ride. The home in which you live, the things in it which are yours already. Nothing but myself, peacemaker, to give to you entirely.” His lips part, and he closes his eyes to nuzzle against Will’s flushed cheek, asking in earnest, “Will that be enough?”

“I will spend the rest of my life earning it,” Will tells him, kissing him again, deep warm things, no longer as gentle as before, no longer the patience for it now that they are pressed so close, now that he has made it clear how determined he is to stay, now that Hannibal knows. Will wonders again if Hannibal was so certain that he would have returned home alone, if he had been so certain that Will would give this up, them, after everything together, months of silent war before relenting, understanding, accepting.

Loving.

“I love you,” he tells Hannibal softly, brushing the words against his lips, nuzzling him, holding him close, lifting his hips as Hannibal touches him, fingers seeking to bare Hannibal as well, smiling when he does, kissing beneath the man’s jaw, over his pulse as he strokes him with sure hands and cool fingers.

It is as if Hannibal had forgotten how to breathe, smothered beneath the weight of loss and mourning, and has now been given air again to fill his lungs, to move his pulse and spur his heart to hammering. He laughs against the crook of Will’s neck, knowing that if he doesn’t, he will weep instead.

He will embrace Will each morning. Watch him at his chores and assist him, now, now that it is no longer by contract that they are together. Share meals with him and spar for pleasure and kiss him freely and stand proud beside him when they visit the polis together. Hannibal has no mind for what comments their decision might earn them, he hears enough already that it hardly matters, and nowhere near as much as it matters to spend his time, his life, alongside his Will.

When Hannibal takes him, pressed against the tree, stretched and slick with spit, it is not gentle. It is exuberant, a breathless, laughing delight to feel Will arch and shudder as he’s filled, legs squeezing tight around Hannibal’s waist, mouths seeking clumsily together as if one might be taken entirely into the other, consumed and made whole again. He lifts a hand to wrap in Will’s braid to pull their lips free, to watch need darken Will’s eyes as he bends his head back and moans.

Pleasure coils quickly, and Will’s sounds grow breathy and warm, quick, panted up towards the sky as Hannibal kisses his neck, worships his skin, licking over the still-sensitive skin where the ash and ink have settled, beautiful, warm, like it has always belonged there. Will laughs thinking of what else he will decorate his skin with, what other things he will earn enough to keep against him, where his blood will flow against it, fuel it as it does him.

He holds Hannibal’s face in his hands, keeps their eyes together as his brows furrow, his lips part, and Will spills between them both, thighs shaking and body arching, muscles so tight in his relief before they go lax, before he grows heavy in Hannibal’s arms and kisses him with a laugh, over and over, little sloppy things, just to feel them there.

Each and every one is returned, chased across Will’s mouth, his cheek, as Hannibal groans low release inside Will, body taut and shuddering, a battle to keep his knees from buckling beneath him. He closes his eyes again, resting heavy where he holds Will pinned against the tree, accepting every kiss that is pressed against him, the curl of small hands against his neck, around his braid. It is no longer a matter of Will being his, but rather this being theirs, for as long as they both desire it.

Neither can imagine a life in which they would want for anything else.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal is unamused, but appreciates the attempt. He sets his things aside, steps weighted each more than the other with the feeling of dread that builds in him, from the house to the dust, from the dust to the grasses, past the horses where he stops for a moment to watch Beli buck and snort against nothing but the wind, and down the winding path to the beach.
> 
> He should have known Will would remember, if only to spite him for his own harsh lessons early on.

The day comes and passes, when their contract is at an end in the eyes of Athens, and their own begins for themselves. It is a day like any other, with Will up early to tend the horses, check over Beli as the little horse has learned to kick and does so against any tree stump or fence he can find, when the air is not enough.

After the horses, Will takes up the axes, tossing them towards the old dry tree by the kennels, stepping back in large steps after every successful throw, until he beings to miss from not seeing the post through the warm air. He knows Hannibal is awake, by then, perhaps because he can feel it like a warmth, when the man finds consciousness as Will does, perhaps because it is late in the day and he should be. Regardless, Will knows, as he levers the axes from the tree with careful tugs, and returns the weapons before going inside.

The dogs greet him in a whirlwind mess of fur and he bends to stroke every one of them, the dogs fluent, now, in three languages, if Asherah’s commands to them on Phoenician, and their obedience to them, are anything to go by. He does not see Hannibal but takes the dogs anyway, asking Asherah if she can pass to the general that he will be on the beach, and wishes for him to join him there.

Then Will goes, sharp whistle to get the attention of his entire pack before he runs, and they run with him, around and past him, over the long grasses and off to the long white beach ahead.

Asherah watches him, the boy who had been so surly when he’d arrived, who had been impossible to tame and talk sense into, who had never been rude but had been deliberate in his avoidance of following instruction. Now she wakes to find some of her work done for her, a bowl of berries, perhaps, by the sink, or goats already milked and the milk warm in jugs in the pantry. She watches him, grown, now, tall and strong and marked as Hannibal is, by choice, and smiles.

Hannibal she finds in his study, carefully seeking through his papers for a map, before she gets his attention.

“General,” she says, waits for him to look up, “your boy requests you meet him on the beach.”

A smile gathers in the corners of his eyes, and he doesn’t care to correct her or his own feelings in that Will is, truly, no longer a boy. He is Hannibal’s though, his entirely, and he lets the thought warm him.

For a moment.

Before it suddenly runs cold.

“Why?” he asks, eyes narrowing.

“He didn’t tell me,” she answers, shoulder against the doorframe, unbothered by his sharp look. Her words do little to ease the suspicion that draws Hannibal’s lips thin, and he lets the scroll in hand slip closed again.

“Did he appear to have designs?”

“Did he what?” laughs Asherah.

“Did he appear to be,” Hannibal sucks his lips into his mouth, and hums, “scheming.”

“Oh, yes,” she grins. “Ill-intent in his eyes and blades beneath his tunic.”

Hannibal is unamused, but appreciates the attempt. He sets his things aside, steps weighted each more than the other with the feeling of dread that builds in him, from the house to the dust, from the dust to the grasses, past the horses where he stops for a moment to watch Beli buck and snort against nothing but the wind, and down the winding path to the beach.

He should have known Will would remember, if only to spite him for his own harsh lessons early on.

The younger man races down the sand in a whirl of dogs, enormous things that when they leap to their hind legs stand as tall as Hannibal does, taller than Will who oversees the pack. He stumbles but catches himself, laughing as he’s barreled into by Snow, assaulted by a barrage of wagging tails and big tongues against his face.

He is buried under the wriggling, enormous bodies until he whistles and they leap from him and race to the waves as Will pushes himself to sit, the bare sliver of his tattoo visible where his tunic has slipped. It has healed now, entirely part of him as though it was always there, as though it just needed the small sacrifice of blood to make itself seen, known and visible.

Will turns to Hannibal when he sees him, and grins wide. It’s a warm day, though not hot, too early for the sea to be warm at all and Will could care less. He scrambles to stand, stumbling through the sand before wrapping his arms around Hannibal and kissing him fully on the mouth, a laugh warming his chest as Hannibal lifts him enough to carry him back to the beach, lips still together, toes brushing the sand until he is set down upon it again.

“A well-earned rest,” Will murmurs, nuzzling against him before bending to untie his sandals with deliberate pleasure, knowing Hannibal watches every motion. “And the first day where you, my lover, are no longer my erastes.” Will stands, grins and flicks his hair from his face, too early yet to have it braided, so it is held back by a strap of leather instead.

“And I do not have to do anything you say.” It’s teasing, fun and warm, and Will gracefully sinks to his knees to work Hannibal’s sandals from his feet as well, though the older man makes a show of protesting, quiet sounds of mild displeasure, though Will hardly cares. He sits back on his heels before pushing to stand, curling fingers in Hannibal’s tunic and stepping close. “But I think I am out of practice in saying no to you.”

“You say no to me often,” Hannibal points out, amused, and Will grins again, bright smile and eyes narrowed against the sun.

“Today my words hold ground. But I shall not fight you on matters today, I will ask you, man to man, to come swimming with me.”

“Do my words not hold ground, in kind?” Hannibal muses, catching his breath from watching Will kneel at his feet, unfurl slowly to stand tall and lean and proud in front of him, wind-whipped and lovely.

“They do,” grins Will.

“Then no,” answers Hannibal in turn, eyes still crinkled in amusement. “I will politely decline the offer.”

Will’s hands coil in Hannibal’s chiton, tugging it upwards, and he laughs when Hannibal snares his wrists and pulls them around his waist instead. It is a blessing, truly, from gods whose good intentions Hannibal had long doubted in secret, that Will is his to hold this way, looked askance at perhaps by others but allowed. It is a blessing that Will is still here at all, and Hannibal rests his arms over Will’s shoulders, turning a nose against his hair and breathing in the scent of sweat and salt air.

“Are you so afraid?” Will teases.

“I am not afraid.”

A dubious sound comes from the younger man and earns a hum in return. “Don’t you think it worth your while to learn?” Will tries instead, his tone thoughtful as he adds, “You said yourself that half the Persian army at Marathon drowned in the swamps.”

“One does not swim in swamps,” Hannibal snorts, still nuzzling affection against Will’s wind-flushed cheek. “One stumbles into them, and in armor, sinks.”

“Then this is safer by far,” answers the younger man. He steps back and takes Hannibal’s hands in his own, pulling him gently towards the softly sifting sea, the sand warm beneath their bare feet. “And I did not want to remind you -”

Hannibal sighs, eyes turning skyward.

“ - but you promised,” Will finishes, his grin bright and triumphant. “And you are a man of your word.”

“To think I held your memory in such esteem,” laments Hannibal. He knows when he has been bested, rare enough though it is, and he follows obediently after Will towards the water’s edge. His robes fall free, buried in part beneath the sand so they don’t blow away, and the general stands bare and grudging, and perhaps still a little amused, to regard his former charge.

Will smiles, bare himself and far less frightened of the water than Hannibal claims to be. In truth, he had started to teach him how to swim, back before they grew close enough that negotiations were no longer necessary, and Hannibal knows, at least, how to float to keep himself from drowning, though his movements through the water are slow and not practiced.

He steps back into the water, back and back, gasping quietly at how cool it is against his heated skin. The dogs are out far, paddling with just their heads above water, others are lounging in the sand. It is rare that Will joins them in the water, but they swim often, when the weather is warm for it. He beckons, a coy smile as Hannibal sighs, and reluctantly follows, until both are knee deep and Will laughs, spreads his arms and falls backwards into the water, allowing it to take him under before he gets his knees under himself and sits up, slicking his hair from his face and blinking the salt from his eyes.

“Get in,” he tells him, smiling when Hannibal blinks at him, displeased and reluctant, before sinking into the water to his chest as Will is sitting, and allowing the boy to turn him, pull him back so he can wet his hair with Will’s arms supporting him in the waves. The ocean is calm today, but it is always moving, it is not like a bath, it is endless and alive and with a beating heart just as their own.

“You remember how to float,” Will laughs, when Hannibal tries to stand again as Will tugs him closer against himself and walks further back on his knees, then up on his feet and toes the deeper they get. A dog paddles past, drenched and indistinguishable from his siblings and Will laughs as the long tail slaps against him underwater.

“The dogs can do it, Hannibal, and you are a far more advanced warrior than they.”

Hannibal makes a sound of displeasure and Will bends to kiss his forehead as a wave lifts them and he curls his legs up to float himself, with a smile. “Think of it as resistance, when you train. The water moves to its own rhythm and once you learn it, you will not find it stifling but freeing.”

“I will drown, if I allow it to take me,” Hannibal mutters, and Will presses their foreheads together.

“Neither you nor I are touching the sand, and neither you nor I are drowning,” he points out softly, amused.

The realization is enough to throw off whatever accidental rhythm Hannibal had found, and he manages out a curse in Neuri before scrambling, sputtering against the water towards the shore. He is, for once, entirely graceless. Even rarer, it is fear that moves him, however briefly it appears, a primal response to the unknown, to something stronger than himself, not yet cordoned off in his mind to an approachable place like riding, like fighting, like war itself. Another oath passes his lips, coughing rough on a mouthful of seawater, before he finds the sand beneath his feet again and stabilizes, only to be ducked under by a wave.

“Where is the pleasure in this?” Hannibal demands when he has his breath again, of Will, of the ocean itself. “I am wet, and the water is cold.” He manages to turn his back to the next wave that washes in but still resists it, feet planted firmly in the sand, and grimaces as it cascades over his shoulders. Closer to the shore then, watching with resentment as one of the hounds races by across the foam.

“I do not enjoy it,” he mutters, hair hanging lank in his face. “I don’t enjoy not knowing what is beneath my feet. That if I need to stand I cannot.”

Will ducks beneath the waves, uses one to push himself closer to Hannibal and wraps all his limbs around him when he reaches him, setting his chin against his shoulder.

“Letting the ocean carry you is the closest one can come to flying,” Will tells him, warm kisses against his chilled neck as Hannibal reluctantly sets his hands against Will’s calves and holds him close.

“Think of the storm,” Will suggests suddenly. “Think of the wind and the fire, the way it tugged at you and pulled your soul to run, do you remember?”

He knows Hannibal does, even as the man releases a slow, displeased breath and trudges through the sand back to shore, carrying Will with him.

“The ocean is just as powerful, and its gifts just as worthy. Let me show you, just once more, and if you feel ill for it, I will never ask again.” Hannibal stops, just the tops of his thighs touched by the water, now, and Will clinging to him like a limpet still, determined and warm and alive behind him. He goes into the ocean often, he has never returned unhappy, never returned hurt or displeased. Hannibal considers, though he does not find himself at all pleased when he turns to walk them back.

Will releases him and floats alongside, hands working through the water to propel him forward at the speed that Hannibal walks beside him. He turns to his back, smiles, and catches Hannibal’s arm gently.

“I will make you a deal,” he offers. “I shall teach you to accept the ocean, to move with it and through it, and if you can catch me, by the end, our day is in your hands entirely.”

“And if I do not?” Hannibal asks, up to his chest now, watching warily as a wave washes in against him.

“Then the day is mine,” answers Will, turning onto his back with a smile, toes just cresting the surface. “And it is a fine day to swim.”

When the general is up to his shoulders, hair finally pushed back from his face where it’s slipped out of his braid, he hums in displeasure. His toes skim the sand, catching ground beneath his feet when he can, treading quickly when he cannot. “I might wait on the shore then,” he suggests - threatens, more like. “And catch you when you emerge, and then have met your terms.”

“You’re doing it now!” Will laughs. The sound carries, sweet and carefree, and Hannibal envies Will his youth, his ease, glad that he can share in it at least vicariously as the sea rushes softly against him.

Hannibal tries, a little further out, and though it takes time and coaching, he manages to tread water, cursing as he can’t find the ground beneath his feet but allowing the waves to lift and settle him, unresistant to their motion but all too aware of how gradually he is tugged further from the shore.

“I cannot swim,” he insists, not without frustration. “I cannot turn as you do, Will, horizontal - so this is hardly more than floating.”

“But you are floating,” Will tells him, treading water before him, leaning in to plant a salty kiss against the man’s lips. “You are not drowning. And you are not touching the sand.”

His expression is coy, pleased, enough that Hannibal narrows his eyes but cannot deny the truth of it - he is floating, and he is alive, and the waves now carry him rather than crush him. He swallows, frowns, and Will leans in to kiss his brow too. On the shore, the dogs lounge on the sand, pleased to be allowed so much time on the beach today. Some bask in the warm water by the shore, others swim out to the two of them and swim back again when Will instructs them with a laugh to leave them alone.

“And you are keeping a promise,” Will reminds him with a grin, staying as Hannibal is, vertical in the water, to allow for a fair challenge when he moves farther away and Hannibal shifts awkwardly to try and follow.

He does not keep Hannibal out in the water for long, not enough for him to grow tired, but he does elude him, over and over, with quick turns in the water, kicks against the sand without touching it, to propel him onwards. He never stays farther than arm’s reach, but he has yet to be caught. Will licks a salty drop from his top lip and smiles.

“Will you catch me?” he asks, gentle, prepared for the game to be done, to go home and do nothing at all or everything at once.

“Will I?” Hannibal snorts, a sharp retort as he turns again to follow Will’s effortless movements, serene and unhurried. “You are half-fish, you must be.”

“I’ve had a lifetime to practice,” Will corrects him. “You are only starting, and doing well so far.”

Hannibal, despite himself, appreciates the reassurance. It has been too long since he was unfamiliar with something, a skill that does not come readily to him as so many others have. But even those, he reminds himself, his skill on horseback and with weapons and with war, came over time, with hard work and patience. And so Hannibal stays in the water, despite Will’s offer - in essence - to be caught. He lets Will move unmolested and concentrates instead on his movement. The rhythm of the waves, a sudden rise and slow settling, is at least no longer startling, easier moved with than fought. It is his body that seems to rebel against him, unsteady swipes of his legs, hands pushing the water aside to move through it.

Eventually, though it is more how the hounds swim than how Will does, Hannibal keeps his head above water and paddles after Will, supported by his own strength and the trust - implicit - that Will would not let him drown.

Will is not swimming quickly, but when Hannibal catches him - fingers grasping an ankle that slips free - he swears and laughs all at once, tilting upright to tread water once again. “That counts,” Hannibal insists, and as he grins he appears years younger, eyes crinkled in pleasure. “That counts, Will.”

“What counts?” Will feigns ignorance, grinning when Hannibal narrows his eyes, lunges again. Further and further down the beach they swim, Will eluding Hannibal enough to slip from his fingers, to make the man swim further after him.

“Perhaps seaweed,” Will grins, slipping under the water and swimming just a little further.

“Or Yelp.” As the large dog swims by with a grin and a wheeze before Will sends him on his way back to the shore.

“Just the waves turning as they go.”

Will himself is breathless by the time they stop, by the time he allows himself to be caught and to be pulled into Hannibal’s arms and kissed. They float, treading water with one hand each to keep themselves balanced, as Will laughs, warm and low in his chest and nuzzles Hannibal when he’s allowed to breathe.

“You cheat at your own game,” Hannibal chastises him, and Will just glances at him with a smile and lifts his chin to point over Hannibal’s shoulder. The general turns, blinks, wonders why the dogs seem so small in the distance, understands the _distance_ they have swum, he has swum, and turns to Will again, to find the other watching him, entirely adoring.

“I know when to cede victory,” he whispers, leans in to kiss Hannibal again, “the day is yours to command, general. And we may walk back to our clothes.”

It is a strange weightlessness, fear still sounding its piercing horns from the back of his skull to see how far they have come, to feel how calmly the waves undulate before they can break against the shore.

Hannibal accepts the feeling, elation and fright and exhaustion all at once. He remembers it, and he sets it aside, to be recalled later and understood.

Will's lean body coils bare around his own - a nereid, he's sure of it now - and keeping himself unsteadily but consistently afloat, Hannibal snares an arm around Will’s middle to bring him near again. Lithe legs curl around his waist, Will’s arms treading the water around them as Hannibal’s own kick strong beneath, and he manages a grin against Will’s mouth before kissing him and parting to paddle back to the shore. Half-helped by the waves, half-hindered by them, it is far slower going than how long it took them to be so far out. But the first sensation of sand that squeezes through his toes is met with a laugh.

"It has been too long since I've learned something new," Hannibal admits, letting the ground take him as he drops back onto the warm sand. No sooner does he release a long sigh than Yelp accosts him, and Hannibal wrestles the gleeful wet beast to the sand, muttering scolding affection as the dog tries to bark his pleasure and only manages an exuberant wheeze.

He watches Will emerge slowly from the water behind him, glistening bright as the sea cascades down the curves of youthful muscle, over the horse-shaped scar that curls galloping across his shoulder to his chest. Will wrings his hair out and catches Hannibal watching, before the general can turn back to bury his face against Yelp’s sopping fur.

Will can feel his muscles sing from the swim still, even in play they made it quite far down the beach. He watches Hannibal, engrossed in playing with the dog that, when stretched out, is longer than he is. He watches the way his muscles move, entirely strong on land, in the sea, in the air, if he has to be. He is beautiful, and Will feels a tug of pride knowing he had made him do this, and he had succeeded.

The beach remains empty, few people on it usually, and Will feels no shame in walking back as they are, allowing their skin to dry in the sun before dressing and returning home. Will sends the dog back into the water, hoping he will wash most of the sand out of his fur before it starts to itch and irritate him and Will would have to climb into their largest tub with the creature and scrub him clean.

He offers his hand to Hannibal, though he knows the man can stand perfectly well on his own, and smiles when it’s taken, a strong grip over Will’s wrist so Will can grip Hannibal’s in turn. Hannibal still stands taller, and Will pushes up in his toes, practiced, to kiss him.

Hannibal’s arm loops around Will’s waist, pressing their sea-damp bodies together, all scars and sun-warmed skin bared between them. He lets loose his wrist to press his hand to Will’s cheek instead, a soft stubble there that Will no longer needs to shave to maintain his appearance as an eromenos. They have evolved, become something beyond those roles, eros and philia in turn, lovers now, equally, rather than lover and beloved - both, to each other.

The wind picks up against them and sends a shiver through Will, a grin parting Hannibal’s lips before he finally releases the younger man to find their robes, whisked down the shoreline, and - thankfully - laid upon by one of the hounds.

Hannibal hums a mild dismay at this but pets the big beast anyway, watching as they rise and race towards Will when he whistles for them and they bound ahead - shaking water and sand from their fur - back to the house.

“All that I had planned for you in your capture seems infeasible now,” the general muses, draping his tunic back over himself once his skin is dry, sandals held in hand. “I want nothing more than to sleep again.”

“We can sleep,” Will nods, corners of his mouth tilting up as he follows Hannibal back towards the long grasses, where the dogs are rolling in them or chasing the young horses - too used to them to run from fear or want to kick, but too uninterested to join in a genuine game. Vih’r greets Will with a shrill whinny and tosses her head and he can’t help but smile. His sturdy, hardy little horse that can outrun most of the cavalry in the army, he thinks, on those little legs.

“Sleep eventually leads to waking.” He chews his lip and directs his eyes to the sky, musing just the same, enjoying the proximity of Hannibal at his side, knowing that he will be for a long time yet. “And it is perhaps in that waking that your plans can come to fruition.”

Hannibal’s smile widens, a silent agreement with Will’s wisdom in this. He is surprisingly tired, pleased by how his muscles ache from what felt so different than the strain of labor around the farm, the exhaustion of training or sport. It is the most minor discomfort, in truth, especially in compare to how he envisioned he would be only a few short weeks before - alone, again, always perhaps. With Will at his side, however, their time now seems effortless together - an entirely easy life, reading together, working together, sparring and swimming and making love together.

Always together.

“I will endeavor,” Hannibal murmurs, “to exhaust myself entirely first. Although, as with your capable lessons in swimming, I may require your assistance in doing so.”

Will pretends to consider, takes his time washing his feet with the cool water from the bucket by the door before going inside. There is a light meal waiting, neither of them having eaten breakfast, and Will takes that plate with him as he makes his way to their chambers, hearing Hannibal follow behind.

He stops only to feed Hannibal an olive, allow the man to suck his fingers clean of oil, before smiling.

“I would be rather capable in helping, I think,” Will tells him, and lets Hannibal return to the room first, before closing the door quietly behind himself.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More silence, more anger. Hannibal wonders why this does not strike him, why he is not afraid as he had been not a year before, waiting for the messenger to return with news. He wonders why this is something he understands as necessary, why this is something he understands at all.
> 
> He thinks of the farm.
> 
> He thinks of Will.

The polemarch graciously offers to put them up in his home in his message, rather than force them to take up room at an inn or return to the country.

Will grins as he dismounts, the smile has not faded since Hannibal told him of the invitation, pleased to be included - to be considered, if not a peculiar accompaniment, perhaps near an equal to the general himself. Hannibal forces his own smile, his polite thanks before giving his horse a pat on the nose. Their horses are taken, their meager bags brought with them to the room they will share, but Hannibal is quiet as he stands in the familiar space, fingers moving again and again across the dark crimson chlamys of his station, smoothing out the drapes of it that already lay perfectly in place.

“You will meet him, I imagine, at dinner,” Hannibal murmurs. “He is likely already at the Strategeion with whatever other generals have arrived. You might accompany me to the agora, but you will not be allowed into the meeting, I’m afraid.” He finally stills his hands, long tunic hanging to sandaled feet, his cloak in dark contrast, hair oiled back into a sleek braid. Assured that this, at least, is all as it should be, he turns to Will. “It may be some time, depending on the nature of the discussion. There will be food after, but,” he trails off, lifting a hand as though to sweep away the thoughts that darken his eyes already, the same quiet anticipation that Will has come to know in him whenever the strategoi are called to meet.

Will watches him, every motion and every implication behind it. He knows Hannibal, knows how his mind works, how his body responds. He can feel the coiling almost sick fear in him that he will not voice, the resignation there and that strange spark, as before, of wanting war. Perhaps so the anticipation ends, so the inevitability sinks in.

Will supposes in that, he cannot blame him.

Instead he just nods his understanding, still excited, elated to be at a place he would never have imagined himself at any moment in his life. Never a warrior, never a soldier. Always a philosopher. Always a peacemaker.

“I will find a way to pass the time,” Will assures him. There are things to see here, places to sit and read alone, or sit and discuss with others. There are people here that Will does not know, could know, will make the effort to. Any news, from any source, is more than he has now. He goes to Hannibal, short steps enough to reach him, and adjusts his cloak so it settles, so Hannibal can stop fidgeting with it for a distraction.

Will curls his hands with Hannibal’s and leaves them against the other’s thighs as he looks up.

“You fear the Gods have lost their leniency,” he says quietly. “That they have given us time enough of peace, that we must earn it again through war.”

Hannibal is tense, now, a quiet thrumming energy through him that pushes his shoulders back, straightens his spine and raises his chin. He is unused to preparing for these meetings with another, accustomed to spending the time before in quiet contemplation, but he attempts to loosen the rigidity that draws him up tall and proud, and brushes the backs of his fingers across Will’s cheek.

“As with all gifts, there must be an equal exchange,” he answers. “The gods do not give without receiving. How they choose to take is the question, and beyond our knowledge.” Hannibal brushes a kiss across Will’s brow, lets his lips linger there to provide comfort, he hopes, that he is never able to give himself.

“That is what I fear,” admits Hannibal, but he hastens to add, “and I hope that it is entirely unfounded. The strategoi meet often, at behest of the polemarch, to talk of many things - the city and its interests, our securities here and elsewhere. If it is as simple as that, then we will see each other again soon enough, and drink and eat at ease.”

Will allows the smile to slip to his lips but he knows and Hannibal knows that it means little more than outward expression. Both are tense, both will be nervous until this is done, and something is decided, so both will wait; Hannibal where he can listen, Will where he will later be told. Without a word, Will steps closer to kiss him, just gentle, just once, drawing a hand down his braid just to feel it there.

His own is longer now, and he has grown used to working the more difficult curls into it in the early mornings. He wonders what it means for Hannibal to see it on him, if it pulls at him the same way seeing Will’s tattoo does, if it reminds him of the connection they have that goes beyond words. Will sets his hand against Hannibal’s cheek and steps away to walk around him.

“Listen well,” he says, this smile genuine, coy and little and pleased, “and at dinner we will drink and eat at ease together before rest calls us.”

He adjusts his own tunic, boots laced comfortably up his calves, and tilts his head at the general. “I will not wander far. It has been a while since I’ve been to the agora, I want to take my time seeing it again.”

Hannibal watches him, as he passes, wanting nothing more than to go with him, to buy him lovely things and lavish attention on him with gentle touches and fond looks. He misses him already, before he has even left, and smiles, earnestly, as he asks, “Do you have money? If there is something you like.”

“You have given me plenty,” Will assures him, grinning over his shoulder.

“No new dogs,” adds Hannibal, and Will laughs as he goes.

Hannibal takes time, there, alone to gather himself. To straighten his shoulders again and present himself not as the quiet farmer, content with his home and his animals and his boy, but as a general of Attica and her army, a leader to be respected, a warrior to be feared. Soft words to the polemarch’s slaves that attend them arrange for wine, later, in their room together, before Hannibal makes his way to the streets, cluttered with people at midday.

He moves among them, but knows from their looks that he is not one of them. Some curious regard him for his appearance, the way he wears his hair, the length of his beard, the marks that show themselves beneath movements of fabric. Some watch him with respect, knowing who he is if not by name and face and stories, then by the robe of his office draped around his shoulders, blood red but for the golden laurels that shine brightly in the sun. Dust floats around his sandals as he navigates by memory to the agora, through the crowds there where he looks for Will, idly, disappointed not to see him in the throng before he enters into the Strategeion.

It is in truth little more than a room - an enormous chamber with no windows but ample oil lamps flickering against the slanted walls - and a table, large enough to sit each of the nine generals and the polemarch comfortably. Doors at the far end lead to a kitchen, should they find themselves there long enough to need it, but the slaves leave as the strategoi enter this place that they know all too well. Long nights and heated debates, agreement and discord have rung against the stone of the Strategeion for longer than any truly know, since the hero allegedly buried beneath it declared hundreds of years before that this was a place favored by the gods of war.

Hannibal settles into his seat, drawn tall in the stiff-backed chair, and tilts his head once to each side before regarding the man beside him, all present but for the polemarch himself.

“There is a map,” Hannibal notes, nodding towards the enormous swath of parchment spread in preparation across the table, and at his side Pausanias snorts.

“Always a favorable sign, isn’t it?”

A small smile appears as Hannibal settles back, held to stasis by a premature exhaustion and an anxious readiness to have this done with, whatever it is. Pausanias, shorter than Hannibal but no less strong, seems equally stoic, but Hannibal would expect no less from the Spartans, for whom he has admittedly always held an intense respect. Far more focused than the debauched Athenians, nearly to a fault, but the sort of men he is glad to see, in a city more concerned with its arts and its philosophies than girding for war.

Themistocles enters, all rise, and he waves for them to sit again. “Apologies,” he calls out. “We have seen far too much of each other this year.”

“The company could be worse,” Leotychidas murmurs, and the men laugh. Hannibal supposes he cannot argue the truth of it, though when once the meetings were a comfort, a place to discuss strategy with like-minded men, now it is a pressure, a need to be here because in the eyes of these men he can kill, and that is what he is good for, in Athens. A rare soldier among philosophers.

He thinks of Will.

“As could the news,” Hannibal adds quietly, directing his eyes to the polemarch, listening, as the rest are. It would hardly be a visit for general protection of their nation, if the men were permitted accompaniment. It seems almost like a mercy for a killing to come. Hannibal settles in his seat and waits. Themistocles allows a brief smile, before setting a hand against his lips and sitting forward to regard his men.

“We had been granted reprieve by the Gods, a reminder, perhaps, of their mercy. And of their ability to take it away just as quickly.”

“Egypt has fallen, then.”

“Egypt could only hold the Persians off for so long,” Themistocles responds. “We knew that. As we knew that Darius’ throne would be filled again.”

“Which of the sons?” Pausanias asks.

“Xerxes. Second-born but first of Darius’ second wife. Grandson of Cyrus, apparently,” answers the polemarch, with a dismissive wave of his hand. “More of interest than who begat whom begat whom is that he’s been sending ambassadors to our city-states, as his father did, asking for a gift of earth and water - a submission. None have been given this time, with Darius dead.”

“Then what is the concern if the alliance holds strong?”

“They have not come to Athens,” Hannibal notes, with an approving look from Themistocles. “And if this is the first you are hearing of it, then they have not come to Sparta either.”

“They are afraid,” insists Leotychidas. “They know they would be slain on the steps. When Darius attempted it, we sent them down a well.”

Hannibal draws a breath, fingers spreading smooth down his robe. “I mean no slight to Sparta, but what does an army of many hundreds of thousands have to fear from anyone? They do not ask for your earth and sea, because they intend to take it,” Hannibal concludes.

Voice rise around the table - asserting Spartan strength, denying Hannibal’s claim, and in the thrum there is fear, and there is knowledge, that when the polemarch does not contradict Hannibal, it is deliberate. Themistocles raises a hand, however, and his voice when the strategoi do not quiet.

“They have already crossed the Hellespont,” he tells his generals, and silence falls over the room, shocked into quiet for a moment, each to catch their breath, before the outcry begins again. Displeasure, anger, demands as to why nothing as been done, why this is a meeting called so late that they could not have stopped it.

Hannibal says nothing, he waits. He waits and he thinks of how the sea looks from the fields of his farm, and how Will embraces it as a thing to love, not to fear, every time he goes down to the beach.

“There are several passes through Thessaly, we could not have stopped them at the Vale,” Themistocles explains, setting his palm flat to the table with a slap to attempt to earn quiet again.

“An army could have been sent -”

“An army was sent. One of ten thousand men. But with the information we were given, neither Euenetus nor myself wanted to see those lives lost in vain.” There is a silence, some seething in their need to kill, destroy, retake, others pondering the words, considering them. “We are not leaders who would throw our men to the wolves for a battle to go down in history. We lost the pass. We will not lose another.”

More silence, more anger. Hannibal wonders why this does not strike him, why he is not afraid as he had been not a year before, waiting for the messenger to return with news. He wonders why this is something he understands as necessary, why this is something he understands at all.

He thinks of the farm.

He thinks of Will.

“- if not by land they will come by sea.”

Hannibal blinks, turns to listen to the room once more, echoing with voices again, but no longer in outrage.

“Then we will make sure they cannot pass on both land and sea,” the polemarch is saying, hands together before him before he stands, moves to the map unfolded before the strategoi, pointing in an arch along the coast.

“If they continue, they will head here, towards Boeotia, Attica, the Peloponnesus.”

“Through Thermopylae?”

Themistocles smiles. “Through Thermopylae,” he agrees.

Hannibal tilts his head, a deliberate motion to clear his thoughts, and surveys the map to find Thermopylae. A narrow pass between mountain ridges, enough to bottleneck the Persian army and force them to meet at equal force with the Greeks coming from the south. It will be a matter of endurance, then, and Hannibal hums.

“If Boeotia joins Attica, it still will be a fraction of how long they might hold out,” Hannibal notes. There is a snort from Pausanias beside him.

“And so you expect Laconia -”

“I do,” Hannibal answers, almost cheerfully. There is a curl of lip from the other man, but Hannibal takes no offense at it - the Spartans are a particular sort, humorless in the utmost, but by no fault of their own. It is a culture too steeped in war to allow room for anything else.

“And what justification is there that I can bring back to Leonidas?” asks the Spartan. “To send our forces into a meat grinder rather than return back to defend the Peloponnesus.”

The claim is not unexpected, nor uncommon. For as hungry as Sparta is for war, at any given time, they are equally defensive of their own home, with the barrier of Attica and her neighbors at their front, the sea at their back. Hannibal does not do the man the disservice of rolling his eyes at this, again, but Themistocles intercedes.

“It is the safest way to stop the Persians from reaching the Peloponnesus,” he reminds the general. “And you will have Attica behind you.”

“Using us as shields.”

“No,” the polemarch responds, with eminent patience. “We will intercede where Sparta cannot - in the sea at Artemesium. The entire fleet - every able-bodied man in Athens if necessary - will hold the strait and stop the Persians from flanking.”

Silence falls, in consideration now rather than consternation, and Pausanias, a reasonable man despite his harshness, finally inclines his head, as do the other Spartan generals. “We will present it to Leonidas and to Euenetus.”

“You will do so quickly,” Themistocles adds, almost gently. “There are few enough months between Xerxes’ armies and ourselves as it stands. Three, by my count.”

Pausanias will represent the polemarch’s offer fairly, and King Leonidas being a reasonable leader himself, Hannibal finds it unlikely that Sparta would choose now to betray Attica. In the future, perhaps, if Persia is ever at bay, as Sparta is ever-hungry, but not with such an enemy seeking all of their demise. And so since all are in agreement - enough, at least, for now - talk turns to preparations. Should the stand at Thermopylae fail, Sparta will fall back to Corinth and hold their own. Lastly, it is decided that Athens is to be evacuated - her men to the strait to man the triremes, and her women, children, and infirmed to the Peloponnesus to wait and see.

Wait and see.

Three months, to prepare to meet Xerxes’ legions.

Three months to wait.

Three months to see.

The setting sun is blinding off Athens’ white stone walls as Hannibal emerges from the Strategeion, arm across his eyes as he squints, Themistocles alongside him.

“Took less time than I thought it would,” he comments, a good-natured gallows humor that Hannibal has always appreciated. “Forced decisions usually do, I suppose. You’ll be staying with me, then? I’ve invited the Spartans but gods know they won’t touch anything but their vile black broth.” A pause, showing a mirth that does not clear the clouds from his eyes, the lines from his face, even as he laughs. “More wine for us I suppose.”

Hannibal smiles, bows his head in thanks, again, for the invitation to stay. The long ride is always welcome to share with Will but he is tired, he wishes to speak with him when they have the chance to drink, to rest and bathe together.

“The worst is not telling those that don’t need to know,” Hannibal comments, hears a hum beside him as they descend the stairs slowly, both headed towards the agora proper, quieter in the evening, though neither worry - neither are there for wares.

“The anticipation without knowing how to help would hurt them worse, I think, than a lie by omission,” Themistocles says. They walk side by side, slow enough to maintain a conversation, immersed enough within it to find themselves mostly allowed to keep it. Hannibal seeks for the familiar braid of his boy, in his best tunic and new boots. But he is not by the fountain as he had been once, coy and beautiful and proud to be Hannibal’s own. He is not at the stalls…

They walk, now, where Themistocles leads, and Hannibal finds, to his great amusement, that they do, at length, find his boy. And another boy, also beautiful, lean and taller than Will, but not much older, perhaps not older at all. They are deep in a conversation of their own, and turn only when Will feels the familiar caress of Hannibal’s eyes against his skin.

He smiles at Hannibal, directs his eyes to the polemarch and bows to him, before standing again, turning to the boy before him, who looks just as amused, as pleased, to see the two men. Though he, to Hannibal’s surprise, does not bow to Themistocles.

“Stesilaus was explaining to me how different it is here,” Will says, “I admit I find myself entirely envious of the places he speaks of like home.”

“Do you not speak of your own home so fondly?” Hannibal teases, before inclining his head to the boy beside him. He is careful only to offer that much greeting, though, the boy is far too beautiful - sleek black curls of hair, pale green eyes - to not belong to someone, and the last thing Hannibal needs in his day is the assumption of encroachment.

Especially when his someone steps from beside Hannibal, who watches in stunned amusement as the polemarch himself greets Stesilaus with fingers beneath his chin and a hand between his legs.

Hannibal is careful to steady his expression, gaze demured briefly skyward, before regarding Themistocles with a polite curiosity. “I did not know the esteemed polemarch had taken on an eromenos.”

“Take him on?” Themistocles laughs. “I nearly dueled in the streets over him. Aristides wouldn’t relent and more than once in front of the assembly I considered drawing a weapon on the bastard - not only for Stesilaus, of course, though - mostly,” he adds, manifesting mirth as they begin slow walk towards the house again, through darkening Athens. Torchlights are being slowly lit outside the houses, shopkeepers in the agora closing down their stalls.

Themistocles regards Will, takes in the length and breadth of him, and seems approving, if not a little amused. “What’s the saying, Hannibal? ‘You can lift up the bull if you carried the calf’. It seems as though you chose yours well enough to keep. Newly made a man, then,” he addresses to Will.

Will bites his lip, cheeks warming, and ducks his head a moment before raising it to reply. “Not yet four months, but the general has prepared me well.”

“He is a man I would certainly trust to turn a boy into one,” Themistocles responds, smiles. He allows another look of understanding to pass between himself and the general, two men and their boys, who are more than a manifestation of tradition for them both. “I fear the things of which you’ve spoken, while we met in private.”

Will just smiles, that sweet, soft thing Hannibal knows to mean mischief, knows as the expression he had learned from Berenike, and - there - the head tilt before eyes find the boy at his side and his lips press gently together in a silent swallow.

“We spoke of you,” he admits, raising his eyes to Hannibal. “We could have, for many hours more. It seems we find you both rather worth our attention.”

It is hard to imagine that Themistocles holds the position of polemarch - deciding figurehead for Athens’ economy, her justice, her security - let alone that they have spent all day in session, when he carries himself with such ease, a ready smile and a quick laugh, that again breaks softly forth.

“Then there are no luckier sons of Athens than we,” Themistocles murmurs to Will, inclining his head as if in thanks, before turning to his own boy who merely looks away, towards the sky, playfully and intentionally coy. A game that Will was never very good at, and one that Hannibal never wished to play, but amusing to watch between the polemarch and his eromenos, the delight in the former when the latter shows an affected disinterest.

Will imagines that when they are behind closed doors, it is a different story entirely.

As they enter the house again, Will catches Hannibal’s hand before the general can go beyond a few steps. Out of habit, out of a desire born anew for the ease of how things were before, Hannibal turns to him, and touches beneath Will’s chin to tilt their mouths to meet.

And when he draws away, and their eyes meet instead, Will knows. A strange calm has settled over Hannibal, a relief that can only come of knowing for a certainty that something is to be done. Jobs and tasks to handle, preparations to make - actions, finally, rather than endless speculation.

Will blinks, throat working on a gentle swallow before casting his eyes to the door for a breath, two.

“Athens is at war,” he says, feels Hannibal’s fingers against his cheek, turning to cup it in a warm palm.

“ _Greece_ is at war.”

Will nods, blue eyes searching Hannibal’s, seeking the man he loves within the warm brown, finding much, much more than that there. His lips tilt again, enough, and he parts his lips with his tongue, turning to kiss Hannibal’s palm.

“I cannot think of better men to trust her fate to,” he says, and with a gentle brush against Hannibal’s side, turns to lead them in, to dinner.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is custom, for an erastes to buy gifts for his eromenos when their time as such has ended.
> 
> It is custom, for those gifts to include useful things - not only armor, but sacrifices for the temple, books, animals.
> 
> It is custom, and yet it feels like so much more.

They stay two days before collecting their mounts and setting off to the farm again. Their last morning, Hannibal leaves Will to sleep, windows open to let the warm air in, and goes to the agora alone. The stalls are still setting up, only the most keen already selling their wares to the early morning customers. Hannibal stops for no one, he walks through until he reaches the stall for armour, the holder just unfurling his tent when Hannibal approaches.

“General.”

Hannibal nods, pulls a small purse of coins to pay the man for his work as the other turns to seek the product behind him, under the endless folds of the tent, of the sheets that will later cover his tables and hold the merchandise clean for the day. A large package, neatly tied and folded with a heavy cloth. The man weighs the money against his palm, opens the purse to return what Hannibal had overpaid to find the man shaking his head.

“You do important work, I would see you continue it.”

The stallholder bows, just a shallow thing, enough to show his respect, his gratitude for the generosity, and Hannibal turns to go. He finds Will still sleeping when he returns, sheets barely covering his form as his breathing remains even in sleep, the curls of his undone braid cascading messy over his forehead and down his back, just brushing against the intricate tattoo on his shoulder.

He is entirely beautiful, and Hannibal stops, a moment, just to look at him, as Will slowly starts to wake, an instinct to feel himself watched, observed, draws his knee up and his hand out to seek Hannibal beside him, finding the bed empty. Slowly his eyes open, blink himself awake, and Will lifts them to Hannibal in the doorway, a smile pulling his lips up as he pushes himself into a stretch, back arched and fingers curled in the sheets before he relaxes, turns to lie on his back, extending a hand to beckon Hannibal back to bed with him.

He cannot deny him anything.

Hannibal's calloused fingers come to rest against Will's own, toughening in kind yet soft still, and he sets his knee to the edge of the bed to lean over his boy. He pushes Will's hair back from his face, tugging the wild curls, and when their lips finally meet it is with a welcoming sigh. He tucks an arm under Will, hoists him arching from the bed to hold against his chest, and as his other hand spreads along a bare thigh, Hannibal resists the urge to have his boy again, now, to feel him spread tight and hot and hear his sweet groans. Will is sleepy and pliant and slinks to straddle Hannibal's legs. He squeezes his thighs around Hannibal's own, a grinning temptation to either hold them tight and rut between them or spread them wide and fill Will entirely.

There is time enough for it, Hannibal starts to remind himself, but laughs now against Will's mouth. He pushes his braid back with a curious pleasure, watching the general, but Hannibal does not explain.

There is not enough time for it. A lifetime would not be enough and even that -

"Come," Hannibal tells him.

Will cuts him short with a laugh and a turn of his hips, rubbing his bare cock along Hannibal's thighs. "I'm trying."

"When we are home again," the general assures him, squeezing his pinked inner thighs before reluctantly breaking free from him. "Up, peacemaker. I have something for you."

Will smiles, stays sitting on the bed a moment more, fingers curled between his legs on the bed, before he realizes that he cannot tempt the general this way and moves, obediently, to get up. It is warm, even so early, and Will indulges in long languid stretches, up towards the ceiling, up on his toes to pull himself entirely long.

He watches Hannibal bring something into the room, large, carefully folded and held in cloth, and brings a hand to his face to rub against the slight stubble there. He dislikes how his body has chosen to grow up, he misses the time he didn't have to make the effort to seem boyish. He knows to Hannibal he will always be a boy, and in truth, by his age, he is one yet, though now officially a man of Athens. But he misses it.

"You said no more dogs from the agora," Will comments, amused, eyes up on Hannibal’s as he stands before him. There is a strange sensation of finality with the way Hannibal looks at him, not abandonment, not upset, but resignation, perhaps, pride. Will swallows, steps closer to look as Hannibal begins to unwrap the thing with deft fingers and reveal the armor within.

Glittering bronze, polished bright, the cuirass is in the shape and form of a man’s chest and back, to represent in hard metal the muscled body beneath it. Thick, soft leather joins the two pieces, and over the metal swirl intricate spirals coiling as detail, an expensive and unnecessary addition.

Hannibal has spared no expense in having his gift for Will made not only strong, but as beautiful as the boy himself.

There are more packages that Hannibal lays out across the bed, a second now unwrapped with careful fingers. Thick wool, soft and well-woven, to lay beneath the armor, dyed to an extraordinary blue - as if the fabric itself were made of sky. Hannibal takes it across his arms, and with a gaze that looks through Will as much as at him, he begins to wrap the chiton around his body. Fingers slip every fold to lay just so, palms smoothing it flat, to feel the soft fabric, to feel the boy who stands still beneath it.

Will swallows, raises his arms as needed for adjustment, feels the heavy warm fabric against his skin, smooth and new, and shivers as Hannibal’s hands work it over him until it lies pristine, comfortable and perfect against him. The color is close to his eyes, when out in the bright summer sun, and Will does not miss the gesture, the meaning behind it, and feels himself smile.

The armor is too beautiful to be worn to war, it seems overly decorative, something you would ride in, in a parade, something you would show to others but it would never see use. Will cannot imagine how much it cost Hannibal to gift him something like this, he cannot fathom why he would spend the money, but it is incredibly beautiful to him, it tightens his chest with an emotion he cannot voice yet, though he knows what it means.

He catches Hannibal as he returns to the bed to gather something else, allows his fingers to stroke over his face, over his lips, up the straight nose and to his hair, and Will sighs as Hannibal does, though he keeps his eyes open as the older man closes his own.

The armor fits him like a second skin, made to measure entirely, and Will feels comfortable in it, feels his heart hammer, now, against the bronze, wonders if Hannibal can feel it when he presses it to fit, ties the heavy leather cords to hold it in place. Will’s lips part and he doesn’t take his eyes off of Hannibal before him. His mentor, his teacher, and so much more than that. He makes a sound, soft, but does not explain it when Hannibal looks at him.

Hannibal simply tucks the side of his finger beneath Will’s chin, to tilt it upwards, and allows a soft smile before continuing the ceremony.

It is custom, for an erastes to buy gifts for his eromenos when their time as such has ended.

It is custom, for those gifts to include useful things - not only armor, but sacrifices for the temple, books, animals.

It is custom, and yet it feels like so much more.

Hannibal kneels, keeping one knee raised, and as he did once years before in the agora, he props Will’s foot against his leg, watching with pleasure as Will sweeps smooth the fabric that lays short against his thighs. His boots are laced, and the greaves fitted to his shins, folded strong and hammered thin, to fit the form of Will’s leg beneath. The general works the ties closed, at knee and at ankle, and lays even those laces flat with broad palms that sweep down, and up again, the curve of Will’s calf.

The bronze is cold against his mouth, when he presses a kiss to Will’s armor-clad knee, and completes the other leg in turn.

When he stands, it is not a boy before him, but a soldier, lean and fierce, cleverer than the confusion in his eyes would convey. Hannibal runs his hand down the breastplate. There is more, still, a finely formed helmet, a heavy shield set against the wall and a pair of axes beside it. But Hannibal does not concern himself with them now, though they are beautifully made enough to put his own blades to shame.

Fingers draw carefully across Will’s shoulders. Minor adjustments made, but that is secondary to the act itself - to touch, to feel, to worship, as he comes close enough to follow his fingers with his lips. Metal meets flesh, each tasted in turn, hands work their way over wool and leather to seek over scars and skin. 

“You have become so much more than I ever might have anticipated, peacemaker,” Hannibal sighs, forcing his heart to steady. “My eromenos no more.”

Will smiles, feels the heat of a blush over the bridge of his nose, over his cheeks. He had never thought he would wear a panoply, when he was avoiding the very concept of war, when he was avoiding the very concept of tutelage. He had never thought that he would fit so comfortably into something to beautiful, had never thought that when he saw the weapons that were meant for him that he would know how to use them, that he would be good at using them. 

He bites his lip, thinking that Hannibal had gifted him axes, not a spear, not a sword, but the weapons he loved, the weapons not of this country.

“Much more,” he suggests instead, shifting to straighten his shoulders, lift his chin, allow his expression to turn proud, haughty, another mask, always another mask, of a new soldier. He does not think of the blood that will mar the bronze, does not think of the blows the armor will suffer. He thinks only of Hannibal, marching at his side, of being able to fight for him, with him, together.

Will lifts his hands, back to work fingers through his hair, eyes on Hannibal, smile slowly curving his mouth, eyes narrowing in genuine pleasure, and begins to work his hair into a braid, looping the end, tying it down so it hangs down his back as Hannibal’s does. Greek but not fully Greek. A man with a Neuri soul.

Will thinks of how he and Hannibal will paint their faces when they go into battle, red across his forehead and cheeks, down his nose and under his eyes to drip from them. He thinks of how it will speed his heart, and every time he will feel the heat of that fire against his face.

“Thank you,” he whispers, manages a moment more before leaning in to kiss Hannibal properly, arms looped around his shoulders, holding him close, feeling his heart beat through the bronze between them.

With the smell of supple leather and oiled metal in his nose, Hannibal anticipates the sound of metal scraping metal as Will leans against him, a clatter as their breastplates clash. It does not come, and Hannibal sighs a sound nearly like laughter, reminding himself that he is not yet gone to war and that they are safe, here, together. He loops his arms over Will’s shoulders and curls a hand in his braid, spanning the other down the back of the cuirass, shaped as muscle and skin.

“It will serve you well, should you have need for such display,” Hannibal murmurs, cheek against Will’s hair, and his eyes closed. “And it is battle-ready, but -”

He does not let himself finish that sentence, does not allow himself to think on it longer than an instant of grief so stark and sucking hollow inside of him that it’s all Hannibal can do to keep his feet beneath him.

It is custom, to give one’s eromenos his first set of armor.

It is custom, and nothing more.

Will is not a soldier. He has never wanted to be, and near as Hannibal can tell, the gods have shown no sign that he should be. He has learned well and fights beautifully, strong and fast and capable, but Hannibal knows - as few others truly do - that simply because one shows a skill for something does not mean it must be their fate to pursue it.

But, as he stands a general in the polemarch’s home, outfitting in weapons and armor a young man who he himself has trained, Hannibal wonders with a dire humor what the difference really is - if the gods did not intend Hannibal to be a soldier, then, he supposes, he would not be.

“Come,” Hannibal murmurs, finally stepping back to take in the youth before him, clad in polished bronze. “I cannot bring myself to hide your face beneath the helmet. And it will be good experience for Vih’r to experience an unusual weight and sound upon her back.”

Not to break the armor in.

Not for Will to become accustomed to it.

Custom, and nothing more.

\---

Vih’r does not take kindly to the new outfit, and shifts on her feet even when Will mounts her as he always does, ducks her head and snorts her displeasure but does, thankfully, walk without issue. They keep a slow pace, occasionally allowing their mounts to speed for the sake of stretching their legs. Will finds the armor comfortable enough, but it is hard to bend, harder still to stretch and lean back as he is used to, without it, but he says nothing, he keeps his back straight and chin up and smiles when Hannibal looks at him.

In truth, he feels very powerful in this.

The shield and axes and helmet they had tied to his saddle. Once in a while Will reaches back just to run his fingers over the new weapons, careful not to cut himself, but delighted by their shape, the smoothness of the metal that has yet to see any war, any violence. He wishes he would keep them that way, but knows better.

No longer a naive little philosopher. No longer a boy.

Will allows Vih’r to canter home, once they see the farm, finding that he will need much more practice riding with armor before he can do so effortlessly. As it stands, he laughs at the sound it makes, the way he almost slips as he tries to move with Vih’r as she runs. They manage home without incident, and he dismounts and spreads his arms for Asherah’s approval, finding her touching him almost as Hannibal had, gentle hands against his chest and back, over his neck and to his cheek. She slaps him gently, enough to make him blink, and smiles, gesturing that he get inside and she will deal with the horses.

Hannibal speaks with Asherah softly, for a moment, her expression becoming solemn, brows drawn in understanding. The same look Hannibal himself has carried since leaving the Strategeion - one of knowing that there is work to be done, and preparations to be made. He squeezes her arm in thanks and follows Will into the house where he is already assaulted by long sweeping tails and wet noses that take up all the scent of his new attire.

“Are you bruised yet?” Hannibal asks, passing by into the bedroom and listening as Will’s armor heralds that he follows in kind.

“The better question is where I am not,” grins Will, and Hannibal hums amusement, unfurling his chlamys from his shoulders to hang. “It’s a much shorter answer.”

“If you were to wear it often, you would become accustomed to it - learn where to settle your chiton to prevent any pinching, build tougher skin where it presses despite.” Hannibal regards his own armor, battered but strong, and lifts it from the stand where it rests, to lay it atop a trunk instead. “You can hang it here,” he tells Will, “to look on and think of me. To keep it away from your thieving hounds.” A mild jest that the general hopes does not betray the hollow within him, pulling cold at his bones, and he turns to regard Will.

“It feels strange to call you peacemaker when you are so attired,” Hannibal muses. “But I suppose even diplomats travel well-girded.”

Will looks at Hannibal’s armor, set aside, yet so much more beautiful for the scars it bears, for the lack of shine and bends that suggests it has grown to mold to Hannibal’s body more than mere design has intended. It has lived. Will swallows, steps closer to Hannibal and makes sure the other meets his eyes, can see him.

“I will find a stand for it,” he promises, reaching to take Hannibal’s up again and return it to its rightful place. When he turns, this time, he sets his hands against Hannibal’s chest, allows a smile as he gently picks at the fabric beneath which he knows rest countless markings of Hannibal’s making and life’s.

“Before we go into battle,” Will says gently, “I will paint your face. With blood and ash and wine in a clay bowl, and you will paint mine.” Will swallows, lifts his eyes. “Every battle, new ink. New blood that will pound against us as ours does beneath our skin. New fire to remind us of our real skin beneath the armor. Into every battle we will ride like demons, and return victorious.”

Will’s eyes soften, the corners crinkling in his genuine warmth, smile, pleasure at being so close to his general, his Hannibal.

“Into every battle we will ride together, Hannibal, if not side by side, by rank, then in spirit. And after every battle I will find you on the field and bring you back to me.” He smiles with his lips now, licks the bottom one into his mouth. “The day you ride out to war, Hannibal, I am riding with you.”

A breath is taken and released. Another. A third, slower still, before Hannibal shakes his head once and reaches for his lover. His thumb skims Will’s cheek, backs of his fingers following the sweat-damp and graceful curve of his neck, remembering how he painted Will by the fire, in blood and ash and wine, how strong he seemed then - stronger now. His hand lowers to Will’s shoulder but does not find soft skin beneath it, instead furnace-hardened bronze, and Hannibal closes his eyes to try and stop the images that come, but finds them unrelenting.

The armor cleaved deep by sword or hoof. Pierced through by spear. Made filthy in mud and gore and in his mind’s eye it is Will’s own, his peacemaker, surprised or overwhelmed or simply unlucky. Run through and calling for him, unheard over the cacophony of the battlefield, alone, and cold, and small…

“No,” Hannibal answers, the word choked in his throat. “You will stay here, where it is safe. You will keep the horses and the dogs, Will, you will not -”

“Hannibal,” sighs Will, tucking himself armor and all against the general’s chest, moving Hannibal’s arms around his shoulders when Hannibal himself cannot. “I am going with you.”

“I would not demand that of you, I would not even ask it -”

“You have not done either,” Will assures him, a calm and quiet confidence despite how hard his heart stutters in his chest. “I have decided for us both. Either I will ride with you or I will ride after, but you will not go without me.”

The words pull a sound from Hannibal, a wilder fear than he has felt run cold through him since he was a child, hunted through the woods by forces unseen. A rough hand wraps in Will’s braid to bend him back, the other working harsh through the laces that hold his cuirass in place, and Hannibal brings their mouths together hard enough that Will is forced to take a step to steady himself.

The kiss is rough, hot, a demand and a promise both and Will surrenders to it as much as he fights back, parts his lips and draws teeth over Hannibal’s tongue when it pushes against him. He shivers, turns and allows the cuirass to be removed, allowed to fall to the floor as Will wraps his arms around Hannibal’s shoulders and holds him.

“Every morning,” he gasps, as Hannibal hoists him up, slides his palms, splayed, against Will’s naked thighs beneath his chiton, “I will greet with you.”

He laughs, tossed to the bed as Hannibal removes his greaves, then tangles fingers in the laces of his boots, giving up when it proves too hard to remove them, instead yanking Will further down the bed to him again, mouths meeting with groans and heavy breaths, teeth and tongue and lips as Will works Hannibal’s belt loose and throws it over to the floor as well.

“Every night -” he doesn’t finish, arching back as Hannibal grasps his hair again, kisses his throat, down to where the fabric has bunched around his collarbone. Will laughs, squirms beneath Hannibal and draws nails down his back, grasping his chiton to hold him closer.

Hannibal growls, releasing Will only to pull their robes free, to push together bare and rub themselves against the other’s thigh where their legs tangle. He presses, forehead to forehead with Will, dark eyes seeking and finding only the same stark certainty that Hannibal himself feels, inevitable, and yet tempered by the lightness of knowing that whatever the gods have in store for them, they will meet it together.

“You are mad,” Hannibal breathes against Will’s lips, and Will can only laugh.

“I am in love,” he corrects, before Hannibal’s lips cover his own again, again, spreading hot together before parting, only so they can meet again. Hannibal reaches for the alabastron to slick his fingers and himself, and Will muses, “I suppose they aren’t very different, are they?”

The elation that once would come over Hannibal at talk of war had already faded, knowing for what he now would be fighting - for a home, shared, for Will and Asherah and the others, for the life that they have found together. And it is not elation, but something else entirely, that fills him now, a near-frenzy that pushes him rough and claiming inside his trembling lover, that forces his shaking breath to swear to him in coarse Neuri.

“I will fight for you,” Hannibal promises. “With you. We will fight and we will return together. I will tend your wounds, your weapons, you will ensure I remember to eat and kiss me awake at dawn, Will, please -”

“Yes -” It is a rough joining, enough to pull shivering from Will, to have his feet - still clad in his boots - slip over the sheets as he spreads his thighs wider for Hannibal. He will find ways, crawl through the entire camp to find Hannibal’s tent so he can rest with him, return to his own before the army has woken, before he can be jeered at and scoffed at and -

It doesn’t matter.

If that happens he will take it, Will just wants to be there when Hannibal shifts awake in the mornings, wants to be there at the end of their long days, comparing bruises and cuts and blood smeared through their hair.

He wants him, just him.

Will meets every thrust, moans his pleasure against Hannibal’s skin, but his hands remain entirely gentle, stroking patterns alongside those already on Hannibal’s skin, he presses fingertips to his spine and slides them down, arching Hannibal’s back at the sensation as Will grins and accepts another claiming kiss. It terrifies him, that they will be at war, that he may lose Hannibal in battle and hope, hope to see him at the end of it. His blood runs cold at the thought and he trembles, pulls Hannibal closer to feel his warmth again.

He knows, without words, why Will clings to him. It is the same reason that Hannibal buries himself so deeply, so slowly, savoring every movement that joins them. The same reason that despite his breathlessness, an ardor that moves the bed to shaking beneath them, Hannibal cannot - will not - let their lips part for more than a moment.

He does not want Will to go, but he will not stop him.

And if Hannibal alone must face the whole Persian legion to protect him, he will gladly do so.

A thick swallow says more than his breath can allow, the gentle way that Hannibal tucks his head against Will’s neck in contrast to the desperate ferocity that drives their bodies together, hard enough that his hips bruise Will’s thighs, that Will can do no more than cling to his general and ensnare him in legs and arms and spread himself and relish how deeply Hannibal aches for him.

Will’s fingers curl in Hannibal’s hair and hold on, turning his head to embrace him that way as well, as he continues to arch his back and meet Hannibal, the way he squeezes his muscles tight to draw a low groan from him… he is beautiful this way, as both sure and unsure as Will is, fearful and proud, claiming him now, as he will again and again until they go, after they go, when they can.

Will makes a soft sound, a whimpering little breath and presses a kiss to Hannibal’s hair, wrapping around him and groaning soft when Hannibal slows down, eases their lovemaking to slow, deep pressure that leaves them both laughing and breathless. Will murmurs against him, promises in Neuri, wishes and ideas for what they will do together, no matter where they are.

How the dogs will greet them.

How Asherah will scold them for returning with scars and being so exhausted, but bring them dinner only to find them asleep.

How large Beli will be when they return.

The softest things that matter to no one else.

Their horses, their dogs, their farm. The things that bring them and hold them together, that are entirely their own.

Something worth fighting for.

Hannibal does not slow, even as release stiffens his body and relaxes it with a groan. He slips a hand between them and coaxes Will to his own finish, hardly enough room to even reach where their bodies are so tightly pressed, but it doesn’t take more than a touch to feel heat spread wet across his fingers, between their bellies, unheeded entirely as Hannibal’s rocking slows, but he remains held in the heat of Will’s body, the claim of his arms.

He turns his head aside to hide from Will the dampness of his cheeks, wrought from him unexpected by the passion with which Will makes his promises. Patiently, and with care, Will turns Hannibal’s face to him, seeing no shame in this, and Hannibal closes his eyes to press more tears free as Will kisses them away.

“You will see this place again,” Hannibal promises him, voice snared into a rough whisper.

“We will,” answers Will, and Hannibal takes solace in his words.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life here is not changed by his imminent departure, perhaps the last he will make. Life here will not change, if this is his last journey from it, and there is a strange comfort in the thought that for all the solace and stability the farm has given Hannibal, that it will persevere in his absence. The horses still will wake each morning and spend the day in their field. The dogs will continue to do as they please in kind. New lives will be born, old ones will fade, the trees will grow heavy with fruit and barren of their leaves, again and again.
> 
> So long as the farm is protected, each day will continue just as the one before it.
> 
> So long as Hannibal and the men of Greece keep those at bay who would seek to disrupt those gentle cycles.

It is a slow process, but a worthy one.

Despite days of preparation, packing what they need and what can be carried, and ensuring that the needs of Asherah and the other slaves will be met with the money that Hannibal leaves behind and her wise guidance.

Despite a night spent as one, and the day before it, pressing each other into walls and the bed, the floor and the soft hay scattered across the floor of the barn, learning each other again and again with heated kisses and rough hands.

Despite that Hannibal himself has not truly slept in days, as if the lyre-strings of his body are being wound tighter and plucked off-key in anticipation, and that Will yet slumbers, exhausted by his happy working-over.

It is a worthy process.

Hannibal begins in the little grove they keep. With languid strides he makes his way between gnarled olive trees and low-slung fig trees. He stops when the wind rises, trembling the leaves, and he stops when he finds the first ripe fruits of spring, to press between his lips and remember their taste. Their juices spill unminded across his lips, skins snap between his teeth, every one a gift. The soil is cool beneath bare feet but warming in the morning sun, light scattering across the ground through the branches overhead.

It is all worth being remembered. Memorized, now, as he glides his hand over the arms of an olive tree that bend like the tired limbs of an old man and bark catches against the callouses of his hand. There is nothing to fear in what awaits him, and yet his calm is disrupted by a snap of wind that yanks at his chiton as if it were hands seeking his attention.

There is nothing to fear in what awaits him - battle and war and death, the afterlife beyond, in whatever form it takes. But for Will -

Hannibal swallows roughly and continues on.

The ocean consumes the sand and gives it back, a playful run and retreat, over and over, and Hannibal allows his breathing to time to it. He has never liked the ocean unless it was from a distance, yet he misses the tug and pull of the invisible currents within it, the way it had held him up despite his own fearful protests.

The ocean is a memory of Will, for him. Watching the boy run to and from it, delighted shrieking in the cold spray, at first alone and then surrounded by his pack as slowly - and at once much too quickly - both had grown up.

The ocean he leaves in peace. Murmurs a soft prayer that it keeps its tides and is kind to those that come to it. The fishermen and those who ferry goods. Anyone who comes to enjoy it for its warmth and its strength. It will be fed on death soon enough, it should be patient in not seeking it here.

The fields are empty, still, the horses still inside the stables and Hannibal closes his eyes to let the soft sounds carry to him. Wind over the long grasses whispering reminders and promises, beyond that, the sounds of gentle hooves against the packed earth, slowly waking but patient where they're kept. He does not worry for the horses, but he will miss them. He knows them all by touch, how each soft nose feels against his own as they greet him and work wrinkled lips over his hands for treats. He knows them by sound, each whinny different in pitch and tone, like a human voice. He knows them, his own family, and they know him.

It is too early yet to set them free, but Hannibal makes his way slowly through the grass to open the doors anyway, allow them time to be brushed and adored and farewelled without rush.

His own horse greets him first, driving a hoof against the door of her stall hard enough to clatter it and tossing her head with a snort. She knows as well as Hannibal does the tension rising in the air, has sensed it and grown aloof from the rest of her herd. The language they share is silent but as full of meaning as any words, and he skims a hand down the broad bridge of her nose so that she knows soon, they will go, to unfamiliar fields alight with campfire and glinting armor, fluttering camp tents and the endless din of soldiers’ voices.

Most of the horses have not been trained to his hand, let alone to a saddle, but still they seek him out for treats, and finding him lacking, huff their disappointment and paw the straw beneath their hooves. He whispers to each of them the names that found them and rough-hewn blessings in Neuri, that they will be safe and strong, well-fed and unharried by predators or injury, that they will not know the sounds of war that Hannibal seeks to keep as far from them as his strength allows.

Only Beli’s stall is entered, the latches clacking shut behind Hannibal as he enters slowly, with a fistful of sweet oats clenched in hand. Brave and foolhardy, the colt stands tall as he can, ears pricked and tiny tail twitching, still nose to haunches, mane to hooves, white as the snow Hannibal has not seen in too many years. With a slight smile, and a gentle murmur, Hannibal extends his palm, filled with grain, and waits.

The foal considers, stamping his little feet in indecision, curious and wanting the treat but so proud as to not step closer. But little by little his resolve is broken, and the little thing comes close and buries his nose in Hannibal’s palm, tiny and warm, and allows himself to be touched. He knows Will and Hannibal by smell, knows they are not a threat. But like any child he will play stubborn before he comes near.

This little one Hannibal spends a long time with, stroking him and feeding him, memorizing the blessing before him, that he has been allowed to witness and help bring into the world. It is only when Beli grows impatient, wanting to kick and run and not be coddled, that Hannibal lets him roam, watches him seek his mother in the field, whinny high and joyful.

The dogs are next. His own, in the kennels, that nearly bowl him over when he enters. They have grown gray with age, happy, now, to be allowed to simply rest in the sun or run to the beach with Will and the others. No longer the agile hunting dogs they once were, now they are as Hannibal is, comfortable and set where they are. They each get scratched behind the ears, talked to and held. His bitch rests heavy against his side and he knows that despite her aloof approach to him she knows, as any creature does, when he may not return again.

He kisses her nose, pats her belly, and leaves the kennels open for them to come and go.

Life here is not changed by his imminent departure, perhaps the last he will make. Life here will not change, if this is his last journey from it, and there is a strange comfort in the thought that for all the solace and stability the farm has given Hannibal, that it will persevere in his absence. The horses still will wake each morning and spend the day in their field. The dogs will continue to do as they please in kind. New lives will be born, old ones will fade, the trees will grow heavy with fruit and barren of their leaves, again and again.

So long as the farm is protected, each day will continue just as the one before it.

So long as Hannibal and the men of Greece keep those at bay who would seek to disrupt those gentle cycles.

He sets his jaw and turns towards the house, but his feet still in a cloud of sun-hot soil, dust spilling into the wind. With his toes, he traces the etched line of the training circle in which countless hours have been spent with Will. He thinks of the sullen disregard and furious tears that were worked out of him. He thinks of Will sitting astride him, wild with the thrill of victory the first time he bested Hannibal in sparring.

He thinks of how many times their training has ended in fingers skirting beneath the hems of their tunics, grins so bright that they could not even close their mouths enough to kiss, and instead simply pressed their faces together, sharing sweat and satisfaction.

This has been Will’s escape and his most hated place all at once. And Hannibal is so proud to think of how far that boy has come, how much he has learned since the first time he had sobbed into the clay, until the last time he had flown across it, feet barely touching the ground as he struck out with his weapons, parried with a shield.

He bends to grasp some in his hands, rub it between his fingers and remember its smell and weight, the texture smooth and at once entirely unforgiving.

Hannibal goes inside.

Through the silent kitchen and quiet corridors, towards his chambers where Will rests sprawled and sleeping, back rising and falling on slow breaths, hands curled in the sheets and in his hair.

He has grown from awkward limbs to lean muscle, tall and proud as he has always been. A beautiful boy, an exceptional boy, and Hannibal's own, by choice so strong it still tightens Hannibal's throat to think of it. He goes to him, now, to rest on his back and watch his boy shift closer, a comfort in seeking Hannibal there, softness when he finds him.

For a several moments more, Will sleeps. Then it's a sigh, a stretch, and one arm rests heavy over Hannibal’s middle, soft nose pressed to the warm hair of his chest.

"You've been in the fields," Will mumbles.

Dirt clings to his legs, darkens his chiton, but it hardly matters that earth dusts across the sheets when the next place they will sleep is so far from this one. “Do I smell of horses?” Hannibal smiles, tilting his head to watch as Will rubs his cheek against his chest, over tattoos older than the boy himself, and Will so familiar with them that he knows them by memory.

“And the hounds,” agrees Will. Hannibal turns towards him, yielding when Will seeks to twine their legs together, tucks his arms in so that Hannibal can hold him close. He ducks his head and breathes in his boy, who for the scent of animals and farm, clean ash and perfumed oils, smells most simply of home.

It will be a blessing that Hannibal need only press close to him and close his eyes, to feel as though he is here.

“You should eat,” he murmurs, but makes no move to unfurl his limbs, does not stop himself from touching his lips down from Will’s hair to his cheek.

Will hums, still waking up, still sleepy and sore and warm until he relents, stretches his legs and points his toes before curling back again, pulling back and opening his eyes to see Hannibal.

“You will eat with me,” he says, and Hannibal smiles.

“Will I?”

“Yes.” Will’s smile is genuine, narrows his eyes as he kisses Hannibal’s shoulder and pulls back to climb from bed. “Because you will not, otherwise, and you must.”

Hannibal hums but does not correct him. Slides a hand over smooth skin as Will stands and slips into a simple chiton for the morning, barefoot and hair a mess as he tugs it from his eyes and stretches his arms in the process, letting it fall loose for now, before he bathes and braids it.

He leaves the room to head to his own, opening the door and laughing as the hounds swarm him, five of them, huge hairy things that stand taller than he when they bounce up on their back legs. He soothes them and settles, kneeling amongst his dogs as they lick and rub against him, lying at his feet, beating him with powerful tails and whimpering their pleasure at seeing him again after a day missed together.

“Shall we run?” Will asks, smiling as the dogs tremble with excitement, knowing the word, knowing what it means. And it hits Will, just then, that he will not see them the next morning, that he will not be able to walk down the corridor and curl up amongst his pack. It hits him hard enough that his eyes sting, and Will stands before it can get worse, laughs to take the tension from his chest, and clicks his fingers, pointing to the door, to follow after them.

He will pick up Tawny and Riot from the kitchen when they pass, he knows, where they now settle with Asherah and follow her through the house. He waves to her, a brief gesture suggesting he will be back quickly, and that the general should be caught and forced to eat. Then he goes, running with his hounds towards the beach.

Out the door and past the goats, kept closest to the house so that any predators can be chased away. Past the coop of grumbling chickens and past the kennels. Past the hardened soil of the training ring and the stables. On and on, past the horses who raise their heads and watch him go, his own calling to him, on and on, until his legs and lungs burn and he stumbles, laughing but quick to catch himself. The dogs swarm him, panting happily and lavishing his face with licks, leaping over each other as Will dusts off his knees and jogs out to the cliff overlooking the sea.

Staid and steady, blue and bright as polished iron, he closes his eyes against the stiff wind that pulls his tunic tight against him, letting it fill his chest and settle his heart’s hammering. The dogs pour down the path towards the water and startle the nesting seabirds into flight, all shrill shrieks as they swoop towards the dogs who show no care at all for their calamitous cries.

This has always been his. Though Hannibal has been a welcome company there, from the first time Will saw the little beach and knew Hannibal’s lack of care for it, it has been has sanctuary. A place to sit quiet when he needed escape from lessons and training - from the general himself - and later a place to play, to run until he could do no more than collapse in the sand and let the sun sear him golden. Easy steps carry him towards the shore, surrounded by nothing but the sea and sky, no sound but the rush of waves and wind, and the dogs plunging into the surf.

So Will stands, feels every muscle twitch from the exertion it had taken to get here, feels his lungs fill and empty, over and over as his heart slows. He thinks of the first time he had taken the dogs here, pups then, little stumbling things, when he had had only three, how they had yelped at the waves and run from them, how they had followed bravely after Will when he had walked backwards into the water and beckoned them with him.

He thinks how he had had to plunge Vih’r into the water against her will until she, too, took to the water in her pleasure, kicking up the foam as she ran through it and Will held himself against her, feeling her heart and his beat together, for the first time, as they raced.

He thinks of how he had watched the moon rise, once Hannibal had fallen asleep, before returning to him.

Will whistles, sharp and short, and the dogs race back and past him, towards the fields and the house, and Will follows. Within the house, he smiles when he sees Hannibal already at the table, runs a hand over his shoulders as he passes him by to change from the sweaty chiton to something nicer. He runs his fingers over the walls as he walks, cool to the touch and familiar, now. Different from those at his father’s home - he doesn’t call it his own anymore - and entirely alive here where they had not been there. The house breathes with the life it sustains.

He will miss it.

Their breakfast is not a feast, but in Asherah’s wisdom, the same as they share every morning. Dense breads and rich goat’s cheese, still-warm milk in a pitcher alongside water-thinned wine. Fresh pomegranates split wide to spill scarlet over their plates, olives shining with oil, and salted fish. But unlike most mornings, Hannibal snares Will by the waist as he passes, humming as Will sits into his lap with a laugh.

He tucks his nose between Will’s shoulders and inhales the scent of salt air and clean sweat, hand pressed firm over the younger man’s firmed stomach.

“You’ve been at the sea,” he teases, releasing Will to watch him stand. He tugs his chiton lower with a grin across his shoulder, and sits beside his general, not for lack of want for closeness but to watch each other as they have every day for so many years.

As they will, both hope, for many more.

There are no lessons today.

No training.

No riding or mucking stalls.

There is no map reading and strategy. 

No mathematics or history.

Just quiet Neuri as Will packs alongside Hannibal, asking once in a while what he should leave behind or take with him. It is a comfort to be able to pack together, knowing where they are both going is enough to tighten Will’s chest but not enough to deter him from his decision. He can think of no other that would be as true to himself as this one that he has made; he would not have been able to sit by and watch Hannibal go to war alone, he would not have been able to farewell him from the door with a wave and a hope.

As much as he fears the war, he fears facing it alone, in a home he cannot defend with people he does not know.

The slaves help them tie down their belongings to the waiting horses, stomping the earth occasionally, pacified with pieces of apple Will sneaks them every time he walks by. The dogs he and Asherah had managed to lock away in his room, with soft words and gentle gestures though their nervousness was palpable before Will had closed the door. He takes just Snow, the dog he had once joked about taking to war with him. For protection and company, warmth and a capable fighter beside him.

Hannibal says nothing, but Will can see how he casts his eyes to the window of Will’s room, where Yelp has set his feet and is silently licking the frame, as though somehow he can lick right through to them again.

“The house will be easier to keep, without the mess you two stalk into it,” Asherah sighs, amusement curling her lips as her arms fold before her and she tries to hide how hard she’s holding her arms with cold fingers.

Her words draw Hannibal’s attention back, away from the vicious pull in his chest and the wheezing whimper from behind the window, and he offers her a soft smile. “And the food will last longer as well, without us eating you out of house and home,” he murmurs, as though the farm were already hers.

In many ways, it always has been.

He can think of no one more capable to keep it in his absence than the person who has kept it for him all along. Though now and then he grumbles, he has always deferred to her in any matters of the home, her skill in speaking to so many unique personalities far exceeding his own, her knowledge and awareness profound. Hannibal recalls seeing her, standing on the block, spite in her dark eyes and a challenge thinning her lips, little older than the age he himself was when they held him in bindings on that same block. Her skills were heralded - educated not only in Greek and Phoenician, but in writing and reading as well - but the look in the eyes of the other men bidding told Hannibal what her use would invariably be were she bought by them.

He had bid until her price was nearly double what was asked, and the first thing she did upon arriving at the farm was spit at his feet.

He supposes he’s always loved her for that, and so much more.

Reaching for her hand, she releases it grudgingly from gripping her own arm, and allows Hannibal to squeeze it. “There are documents, in the chest beneath my desk. Should I not return, the house and all in it are yours, to do with as you please,” he intones, tongue parting his lips before he laughs. “So long as all who live here - human and animal - are accounted for and given home.”

“Of course,” she snorts, but her eyes don’t meet his. “After all I’ve done to make this place what it is? There aren’t enough drachmas in the country to make me yield it.” A pause, and she adds, “Or those in it. Your horses will be fine, Hannibal.”

His eyes crinkle in quiet amusement, and he releases her hand. “There is more.”

“There always is.”

“For you,” he murmurs. “Your freedom, Asherah. I could not have you made a citizen - that power is beyond me - but as of the stamp that seals the paperwork, you are a free woman, no longer designated slave, in the eyes of Attica.” He ducks his head now, jaw working. “It is the least I could do for all you have done for me.”

For a moment she looks as though she’ll strike him, that same gathering of her brows that indicates genuine displeasure, a gathering of tension in her shoulders that Will had always associated with something in the house having gone wrong, a broken door, a hole in one of the tubs, the goats chewing through the fence. For a moment she is entirely still, and then her small arms are around Hannibal’s shoulders and she’s pressing her mouth to his, eyes closed and cheeks pink, and all Will can do is stare.

The general breathes a laugh through his nose, and sets an arm around her waist. His cheeks darken, hers alighting in kind, and their mouths hold together for a long moment, aching tenderness between them. She - as Will, as his horses, as their home - has been among the kindest blessings that the gods have granted him and Hannibal holds her near for as long as he can, before he runs his other hand over her hair and she settles back onto her heels with a sigh.

“It’s bad luck for you to depart without a kiss from the woman of the house,” she murmurs, fighting down a smile.

“In truth, you could not own the house if you were not free,” Hannibal teases. “I am merely protecting my interests.”

It’s enough to make her laugh, just a quick burst. “And leaving me to protect them in your absence,” she chides, before adding, with softness in her eyes. “Until you return.” She doesn’t wait for an answer, avoids the look in Hannibal’s eyes at her words, before turning to Will, brow raised but the shadow of a smile still caught in the corner of her lips.

Arms over his shoulders as well, pressed cheek to cheek with the boy she has come to know, over time and with increasing fondness, as a friend. “Take care of yourself,” she murmurs. “And him. Gods know he needs it. Without one of us there he’d likely forget his armor before rushing off to fight.”

“I will bring him home,” Will tells her, and for as much as they both know the weight of the promise, they know too the heaviness in the consequences. Neither say more, and Asherah steps away to clear her throat and fold her arms against her chest again, hips cocked as she regards the horses, armor tied to them and weapons off the saddle, considers the men that are about to ride away.

She nods towards Snow, bends to scratch him behind the ears and tell him something in Phoenician until he licks her face and she laughs, gently batting him aside.

“Go,” she says. “Before the day grows late and the night catches you.”

She stands long enough to watch them mount, long enough to have them past the house, around the bend of their long pebbled road, before she turns to go back into the house and doesn’t look out the window to watch them pass by.

\---

It is several hours later, and the agonized wheezing has not stopped, has not ceased, and she can hear the large dog shuffle between rooms, shoving his nose on the bed, under it, around the entire space and back out again, over and over as Yelp seeks for Hannibal, for Will, and does not find them. An animal, instinctual panic that he has lost someone and they are not coming back.

The other dogs are restless but contented to nap, to sit by her as she works in the kitchen and cleans the study, as she assigns tasks to the slaves that everyone can keep up with without difficulty. But Yelp will not sit, he will not settle, and her heart pulls with every little breathy ‘oorp’ as he tries to bark, tries to call them back.

He keeps seeking as the afternoon turns to early evening, he does not eat his set meal, he does not let himself be touched beyond passing under Asherah’s hand as he seeks, again, in the rooms he has already checked.

“Stupid dog,” she whispers, watching him struggle, watching his eyes huge and wet and almost human in their pain. “You stupid boy, you have to let him go.”

Yelp whines, paws the ground and turns to check Will’s room again and Asherah can’t do it anymore, she cannot watch that dog again, turn around himself to try and find someone no longer there, and she knows that he will not stop, that he will not eat and he will not sleep and he will wear himself thin looking for the two of them. And she will not have it. She whistles, sharp and short as Will does, and when he comes pelting around the corner, hitting a wall in his fervor, she holds the kitchen door open and damned be the consequences.

\---

Shadows are pulling long across the rocky outcroppings when Hannibal finally stops, a brook scattering over rocks from a spring high on the mountains around them. They dismount and let the horses drink, Snow lapping loudly along side, as Hannibal stretches aching thighs and Will takes the bundle of food packed for them from one of the bags overlaying their seemingly tireless horses.

They are hours already from home - several more to go until by rising moonlight they find the camp at which the men are stationed - and Hannibal is quiet, now, thoughts wandering to the horses once again in their stables, the dogs sprawled freely as they wish over both the men’s beds. The wind stirs the scrubby brush around them, and the horses suddenly stand tall. Ears tilting and heads following the movement, tails swishing sharp. Snow turns suddenly and barks, loud enough that Will winces before hushing him.

The dog races into the road, thunderous barks and finally a howl, and Hannibal curses.

“Out of the road, you fool,” he mutters. “You will be crushed and you will be the only one to blame for it.”

But there is no clatter of cart wheels that approaches in the plume of dust rising pale from the road, no thud of hooves. There is, curiously, silence, and Hannibal wonders for a moment if perhaps it isn’t some road-bound spirit come to seek their restitution.

And then he hears a piteous sound - a desperate wheezing sound that carries shrill down the road - and stands.

“Stupid dog,” Hannibal laughs, hand pressed against his face in a shudder of relief before he jogs to the road beside Snow and kneels, arms spread wide.

Will steps up beside Hannibal, jaw slack and eyes wide as the dog keeps up his running, exhausted from following them and never stopping, never ceasing, until he collides with Hannibal and settles on him, body wriggling in his joy, tail thrashing and tongue licking Hannibal everywhere he can reach.

Will could cry for it, hands up against his nose, brows furrowed to see the two reunited, to see his boy, his chosen boy, here because he could not leave them and could not let them go. He is not a dog fit for war but Will knows that were threat to come to either of them Yelp would be as vicious as Swift, as graceful as Riot in his defending of them.

“Gods,” Will laughs, bends to stroke his boy behind the ears as Yelp continues to squirm, continues to whine and wheeze his joy until he’s settled by Hannibal’s hand, picked up by the man with a groan and taken to the water to have his fill.

“He would have dug his way out had she not let him free,” Will murmurs, watching the huge dog drink and sit heavily on the shore before settling on his side and panting as his heart slows, as he calms that he is with the two of them again. Snow nuzzles him, lies down by his brother and curls against him so the two rest their heavy muzzles on the other’s haunches.

“Foolish creature,” Hannibal mutters, resounding affection in the rough tenor of his voice as he drops to sit beside the dog, and leans to bury his face against the fur. He doesn’t bother affecting disdain for the creature right now, not after this, after a relentless pursuit and refusal to see them leave.

So much like the boy who watches Hannibal in quiet amusement, as the general breaks apart his food to offer to the dog whose tail beats thudding against the ground.

They are far from home, and further in more ways than distance, but as they sit quietly together sharing food and drink, teasing words and soft touches, Hannibal thanks the gods that at least this time, part of home has come with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...you thought this was over, huh?
> 
> We couldn't let them go that easily.
> 
> Look out for **Ekdosis, book 4** posting every Sunday from next week!! Thank you so much for your support, all of you, it has been invaluable. We hope you enjoyed this book as much as the previous two, and will enjoy the fourth as much as you enjoyed this one!
> 
> \- W&B

**Author's Note:**

> Epaulia - a giving of gifts (before a wedding)


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